


The Untold Story of Elizabeth Childs

by Saint11Icarus



Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-13
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 05:49:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 48,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2610734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saint11Icarus/pseuds/Saint11Icarus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A prequel to Orphan Black.  What happened before Sarah Manning stepped off that train?  This is the untold story of Elizabeth Childs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Katja Obinger

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Elizabeth Childs held her cell phone to her ear, her brow furrowed. She braced the phone between her ear and shoulder and scooped a case file off of the low kitchen counter. She tipped the file into the leather briefcase she was holding open with her other hand, sliding it inside before flipping the top of the case shut and closing the latch.

“I said I’d be working late tonight, no need to wait up.” Broad shoulders moved through the bedroom doorway into the open floor plan of their shared living space. Paul was buttoning the cuff of his sleeve, he opened his mouth to continue but was cut off by Beth thrusting her hand out and waving it emphatically, her fingers twisted around a pen.

“Slow down, I can’t understand you.”

Paul’s eyes widened slightly. He gestured to the phone, an unvoiced question. Beth met his eyes and shrugged, her hands thrown up in the air in frustration. “Please, calm down, tell me again.”

“I said I need to speak to you about an emergency,” the voice on the line was heavily accented, was that German? The phone number was certainly foreign. “It is essential we speak, Elizabeth Childs!”

“Yeah, yeah, I got that much, who is this?”

“My name is Katja, Katja Obinger. I believe we may be related, Elizabeth Childs.” Her English was broken and stuttered, she sounded out of breath, like she’d been running.

Paul cocked a hip and leant his arm into the doorframe, listening. When things didn’t seem to be progressing, Beth looked up from her briefcase and gestured Paul to the door, mouthing ‘go ahead’. He pushed off of the frame and leaned over the table, where Beth was tilting her jaw out to meet him and their lips pressed surely together. Paul pulled away first, his eyes and fingers moving to his other cuff and he turned and walked to the door, grabbing his keys from the flip-top box where he left them. As he was shutting the door he glanced back to his girlfriend who waved and smiled, mouthing ‘love you’, he smiled in return and the door clicked shut behind him.

“Alright, Katja Obinger, what is the emergency?” Beth’s voice was more than a little impatient.

The German was quiet for a moment, swallowing another breath, “Are you alone?”

“Uh,” Beth’s brow furrowed again and she glanced around her minimalist apartment, “yeah.” 

She was quickly losing her desire to maintain the conversation. It was early, she hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet. After waking up later than she intended, she was desperate to get out the front door.

“Good, I have proof of a conspiracy. I can trust only you with this, you are polizei, yes?”

“Police, yeah,” Beth’s tone of voice turned from annoyed to one of dark curiosity. She opened her briefcase again and pulled out a yellow steno pad, uncapping the pen with her teeth and speaking around the plastic, “what do you mean by conspiracy?”

There was silence for a few moments before her phone made a muted noise and vibrated against her shoulder, “I send you picture, you look, yes?” Beth lifted her cheek from the phone, letting it drop into her hand, she flipped it to look at the screen, swiping with her thumb until she found the newly arrived images. There were four photographs, each containing a drivers license from a different country. Beth squinted and pulled the phone closer to her face, spreading her fingers against the screen to enlarge each of the images. The women in all four identification cards looked identical to each other, and to her. The pen cap fell from her mouth and she moved blindly around the kitchen table, her eyes never leaving her phone. She moved quickly to the bathroom, and fumbled to hit the light switch. Her eyes finally flicked up, into the mirror, into her own worried brown eyes.

“Elizabeth Childs?” She could hear the German’s voice coming from her phone. “Are you there?” Beth couldn’t bring herself to put the phone back to her ear, her eyes were busy moving back and forth between each picture and her own face in the mirror. “This is very important. It is life and death, Elizabeth Childs.”

“Wh-what is it, who are these women?” Beth pushed the phone back to her ear and looked into the mirror fully, eyes barely registering the sight of herself reflected back.

“I was at a train station over a year ago,” the German began, “I saw this woman, we had the same face, you see.” Beth could see. “We had the same eyes, the same mouth, our ears, the same.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Beth tried to hurry her along, “same face.”

“Same everything. We spoke to each other, her name was Danielle. Her picture is with you. We both are only childs, born to different parents, in different countries and on different days!” Katja’s speech was becoming frantic again and Beth was struggling to follow along. “She was skilled at the computer, she found others like us and reached out to them. All born to other families, all in other countries, but all born close in months.”

“What are you saying, Katja?” Beth moved from the bathroom back to the kitchen, grabbing her pen and paper off the counter. She pulled the phone from her ear and put it on speaker so she could still hear the other woman while she flipped back to the pictures. She began scribbling down information, beginning with Katja Obinger’s name.

“I-I don’t know…” The German paused before making an uncertain noise, “I cannot explain it, but there must be a connection.” Beth’s eyes flicked up from the paper to stare at nothing in particular, she agreed, but before she could say anything the German continued, “That is not the emergency.”

Beth tapped the end of her pen nervously against the page, “Do I want to know what the emergency is?”

“Danielle is dead! I find her this way, with her throat open, there was so much blood Elizabeth!”

“Y-you called the police, right?”

“No, I-I left her there,” Katja’s voice was pained and Beth suddenly felt sad for the loss of this stranger, “I called the others, but no answers from both of them, you see? After time I seeked them out, but they were gone! Dead! Over months, the others were all dead, Danielle the last. Hidden in her apartment I find two more pictures, yours is one and your phone number is there as well. I know you must help me.”

“Fuck,” Beth muttered, her body began moving on auto-pilot, pacing along the length of the kitchen.

“Elizabeth Childs, I am being followed, yes? Someone is coming for me, I see in the shadows. They break into my house while I sleep, they play games with me! You must help!”

Beth swallowed the anxiety in her throat, her mind racing to catch up. Was this serious? It had to be an elaborate prank, photo manipulation, something more believable than…whatever the truth was. Beth’s gut tensed and she spoke without thinking- “Do you have a Skype account Katja? I want to help you, but I need to see this for myself.”

The German gave an inconvenienced huff, but it sounded affirmative, Beth could hear her moving over the line. “RocknRollxxKO,” Katja said, at the absurdity of it she added “is my screen name.” Beth pulled her laptop from her briefcase and flipped it open, setting it on the arm of the living room couch, kneeling next to it. She typed in the German’s username and hit the call button.

It was accepted without question, and within moments what little annoyance was left in Beth’s gut turned to panic. Katja was staring directly into the camera as if to give Beth the best view of her face, she turned her head left and right for profile shots before centering back. “Will you help me? Please, Elizabeth.” Her voice echoed between the laptop speakers and the phone pressed to Beth’s ear.

“Yes, yes I’ll help you Katja, don’t worry.” Beth sighed and ran her fingers through her long brown hair. “If someone really is coming after you then you need to go into hiding, okay? Leave your job, your house, tell your friends that you’re taking a last minute vacation, death in the family or something. Buy a new phone, a burner phone, okay? Text me the number, but only me. Use cash only, stay in a hotel,” Beth rattled off anything she could think of to easily and effectively hide a person on short notice. “In the meantime...I’ll…think of something.” Beth was certain she had no idea what it was she would think of, but she had to do something, she had never heard fear like what lined the German’s pleas.

“Danielle, the last time we spoke, yes? She said she had found others…I do not know if they are dead as well, I worry for them.” Katja’s face was twisted, had the clarity of the call been better, Beth may have seen tears running down her pale cheeks.

“Others?”

“Yes, others. She found you, more as well. I told you of the two photos. The other is named Alison Hendrix.” The German held up two photographs, one was Beth at her commencement ceremony, she was in full dress uniform, her badge shining over her heart. The second was a candid shot of a woman with a bag of soccer balls swung over one shoulder and a sack of oranges in the other. “I will send you another message containing her information. I believe there may be more like us, but the only information I found was yours and this Alison’s.”

Beth’s jaw set, others were out there and they could be steps away from meeting an end similar to Danielle and her friends, and they had no idea it was coming. “Text me your new number, Katja.” Without another word she slammed her laptop shut and repacked her briefcase. She grabbed her car key out of the box by the front door and stepped out into the warm spring air.

“Yes, I will do it.” Katja’s voice came over the phone, sounding almost relieved, Beth thought.

The door banged shut behind her and she jammed her key in the lock as quickly as she could. She hung up the phone at the same time as she started her car. She dropped the phone onto the seat next to her and reached over to the glove box, opening it and fishing inside for the familiar feel of the pill bottle she’d stashed there. She struggled a bit to open the container with her trembling hands, but she dry swallowed two pills without batting an eye and threw the bottle back into the glove box, slamming it and gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckles.


	2. Alison Hendrix

Beth knocked on the window of the police lab, her knuckles rapping just below the large blue decal of the letter C emblazoned by the entrance, meant to distinguish this lab from the others. Her body hugged the doorframe as she leant into the space. “Do a favor for me, Jonah?” The room was brightly lit and full of equipment that Beth couldn’t identify as well as a handful of techs working on separate projects. Despite the busy atmosphere, the large space felt cold and sterile, the windows that spanned from the ceiling to Beth’s shoulder facing in to the building’s hallway the only things opening the claustrophobic room up. There was no natural light, and the place made Beth feel fiercely uncomfortable.

A young, good-looking man looked up from his computer to see her and a smile spread over his face, “Detective Childs, a favor for you? Anytime.” He pushed his wheel chair back from his desk and slapped his hands against his thighs before opening his arms out in a welcoming gesture. “Always good to have you in the Party Lab.”

Beth never understood why the tech’s called C Lab the “Party Lab”, nothing about it ever looked even remotely fun. Instead of saying something she smiled and walked uneasily into the room, pulling a fingerprint card from behind her back. As she handed it to him over his desk she noticed the smudged ink still staining her fingers and she quickly pulled her hand back and stuffed it in her pocket.

“You got some fingerprints to run? We’re pretty backed up, Detective Childs,” he glanced down at the card in his hand, clearly not noticing Beth’s unusual behavior, “happy to do what I can though.”

“Got some gum in it for you,” Beth winked at the young man and tossed him blister pack, most of the hollows were already smashed out.

“Ah, it’s the thought that counts,” he smiled up at her.

Fingerprints were the first thing that had come to Beth’s mind on the drive to the station. It was a long shot, but if there were others this was a better alternative than looking randomly. It was also the only plan Beth had come up with. “Just have the computer send them straight to my email,” she gave the young man a half-hearted smile, with any luck he wouldn’t look at the results and if he did she’d come up with something, “my eyes only Jonah, okay? This case is pretty fragile and I don’t want anyone else touching it.” He nodded but she raised her eyebrows at him, looking him straight in the eye pointedly.

Picking up on the importance of the situation, he began to nod more vigorously, “You got it detective, I’ll put only your address in the program, no one else will get the results.”

“Thank you, Jonah, you’re really saving my ass on this one.” She flashed a genuine smile this time, or as genuine as she could manage with her tongue lying so thick and heavy in her mouth, “maybe you’ll even earn yourself a whole pack of gum if you don’t fuck it up.” She chuckled before turning on her heel and heading toward the elevator.

She walked as fast as she could without jogging back to the bullpen and sat down at her desk, trying to wipe her fingers clean on her grey suit pants. She pulled her phone out of the desk drawer and opened the image she’d received from Katja on the way in to work. Alison Hendrix. The woman looked…just like her. Her hair was pulled back in a painfully tight looking ponytail and she had a stiff but believable smile, below the picture was written the words “Alison Hendrix. 35 Black Oak Drive, Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.” Christ, she wasn’t far away at all, how had she never run into this woman, Beth wondered.

“Hey, Childs, we’re ordering lunch, what do you want?”

Beth looked up to see her partner, Arthur Bell, looking at her expectantly. She stuttered for a moment before standing up, her phone tight in her grip. “Uh, nothing thanks, Art, I’m going out for lunch.” Without another word she pushed her way out the door, ignoring Art’s calls for her to wait.

***

Beth’s elbow was resting on the center console, her thumb against her jaw, propping her head up. Her teeth were worrying at the side of her index finger. She had been sitting outside of 35 Black Oak Drive for nearly an hour, she should have been back at the station, but sitting outside Alison’s house seemed more pressing to her. Beth’s phone began to vibrate against her thigh for the third time, Art’s name lit up on the screen, but she pressed ignore just like she had the two times before.

She craned her neck, shifting her weight in her seat and spitting a shred of fingernail out the window. She thought about marching up to the door and knocking, but she wasn’t sure what she’d do if someone answered. She snorted at the absurdity of the situation, she was a cop, her whole job was knocking on doors and dealing with whatever was waiting on the other side. She mentally weighed her the odds; if someone that wasn’t Alison answered, if all of this was a big mistake, no one would be the wiser, and if Alison did answer…well, that’s what she was after, right?

She took a sliver of skin out of the side of her middle finger and steeled herself, opening the door with a deep breath. She barely had her feet on the asphalt when she second guessed herself, turning back into the car and closing the door. Beth let out a shaky sigh and looked up into the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were tired and there was something in them that hadn’t been there before she went to bed the night before, something she didn’t quite recognize. She shook her head, pushing her insecurities from her mind. With practiced ease she popped open the glove box and reached for her pills and a fresh blister pack of gum.

Alison Hendrix’s front door was closer than Beth had anticipated and she was surprised when the driveway ran out under her feet. Her eyelids fluttered as she lifted her fist to the heavy wooden door and knocked. She ran her hands across the front of her blazer with the dual purpose of drying the clammy sweat from her palms and checking on her gun, it was still in her shoulder holster tucked against her rib cage- in the same place it had been the last seven times she’d checked it. She was suddenly wishing she’d taken another pill, she wasn’t sure two was going to cut it.

Beth heard the deadbolt slide, the door cracked open and half of a face peeked around it. A familiar brown eye blinked rapidly and then widened. Beth’s breath caught around the lump in her throat. “Hi, my name is Beth Childs, we…need to talk.” Her voice came out clearer than she’d expected, commanding and sure- maybe two pills was enough after all.

The door parted further and Beth saw her own face staring back at her, jaw slack and eyebrows so high they were partially hidden behind a curtain of short bangs. “Excuse me?” Alison’s voice floored Beth, it was unexpectedly different from her own, it was higher in pitch and had an edge to it that hers had never had.

“May I come in?” Beth asked, “Please, it’s important.” The door shut in her face. Beth blinked, opening and closing her mouth a few times. She could hear the other woman’s back thud against the door. “A-Alison? Alison Hendrix? Listen, I know this is crazy. I’d like to say the explanation was simple and comforting, but…” she sighed, “I’m afraid it’s about as fucked as it seems.”

The door swung open with startling ferocity. Alison stood straight on the other side, her posture was downright frightening, “Excuse me, I’d appreciate it if you watched your language, there are children living in this neighborhood.”

Beth shook the shock off and glanced down at her watch. “If any kids are around they’re truant and I’ll have more work to do than just speaking with you.” Alison had her arms wrapped around her body, “It’s okay, I’m a cop,” Beth unclipped her shield from her belt; instead of flashing it at the woman she held it out towards Alison, balancing the wobbly weight of it on the tips of her fingers so the stranger could take it.

Alison snatched the heavy chunk of metal and examined it. She looked as if she was going to step out onto the porch, but seemed to decide against it and instead she took a pace back, opening the door wider and handing Beth back her badge. “Thank you,” the detective said as she moved into the entryway. Her eyes quickly scanned the space, it was homey but didn’t quite feel lived in. There was a bowl of loose potpourri in a glass bowl on a table just inside the door and thick candles with fresh white wicks dotted the tidy space. Family photos were framed along the walls, pictures of two young children in rows, in each picture the kids looked a year older than in the previous. She took the door in her hand and shut it softly behind her, listening for the click of the latch.

“Beth, you said your name was?” Beth nodded and watched as Alison struggled to swallow.

She understood the challenge, “Beth Childs. I wanted to talk to you about…”

Alison stood very still, rigid, her rapidly blinking eyes the only sign she wasn’t a statue. There was nothing but silence for a few beats before Alison spoke, “About?”

Was she kidding? Beth opened her mouth and furrowed her brow gesturing in the space between them, “About this.”

Alison released the breath she was holding and turned on her heel, walking deeper into the house, “Well it is…uncanny,” her voice seemed nonchalant and Beth aimed a confused squint at her retreating back, “do come in.”

The detective took cautious steps to follow the small woman. “Uncanny isn’t really the word I’d use for it.” In the same breath she asked, “Is anyone else here?”

Alison spun again, having reached the island in the middle of her kitchen, leaning the small of her back against it. Beth stopped short, she was having trouble keeping up with the small woman’s frenetic movements. Was she clutching a knife behind her back? “Why, are you planning on killing me?”

“What?!” Beth’s brow furrowed sharply, “No, I’m not trying to kill you Mrs. Hendrix, I’m trying to help you.” Her voice was sure and hard, she was thankful that she felt it, for the first time all day she realized what she was doing. She walked toward Alison with confidence that left the other woman standing sill, Beth felt her jaw clenching tightly around her gum. The detective reached behind Alison and yanked the knife from her half-hearted grip, setting it a bit heavily on the island. She was a cop, godammit, and if people really were fucking dying she wouldn’t let anyone else lose their life because of whatever this was.

The fingers of Alison’s left hand were tight against her jaw, her right arm crossed under her breasts, she stared at Beth for several moments, “Please explain yourself.”

“I don’t have an explanation. I just want to get to the bottom of this,” for some reason Beth didn’t have it in her to mention the German, or the killer that seemed to be hunting them. She leaned forward towards Alison, speaking quickly, “All I know is that we aren’t alone…there are others, others who look just like us.” Alison was shaking her head furiously now, holding her hands out in front of her with her palms towards Beth’s face as if she was trying to physically push the words back into the detective’s mouth. She turned away and marched back towards the front door, for a moment Beth thought Alison was planning on kicking her out, but the small woman took a sharp left turn down a set of stairs. She moved to follow the brunette but was stopped by the chime of her phone. She cursed Art’s name and glanced down at the screen, but it wasn’t Art, it was a text from an unknown number- the German.

‘Call, yes?’

Beth sighed stuffed her phone back into her pants pocket, following the path Alison had taken, finding her with relative ease. The woman was in a room off the basement, just to the left of the stairs. Beth hadn’t seen her at first, but the sound shuffling had gotten her attention. Beth stood just outside the doorway to what appeared to be a painfully organized craft room. Alison was repeatedly squeezing the trigger of a hot glue gun like it was a stress ball while her other hand busily sorted through a Tupperware full of googly eyes. Beth blinked a few times and worked her jaw silently, “What are you doing?”

“My children have a puppet show coming up for school, and these props won’t make themselves.” Alison’s voice was hurried and an octave higher than Beth had heard it so far. The detective watched as the other woman continued to try and find ways to avoid making eye-contact while she waited for the hot glue gun to warm up.

Beth ran her fingers through her hair and let out a tired breath, switching her gum to the other cheek, “Alison, I need to leave, another one of…us…needs me. I don’t know what I thought coming here would accomplish. This was a mistake.” She dropped her arms to her side.

Alison’s head fluttered in a nod and her tongue tutted, “Yes, I’m really not sure what you were thinking, you’re clearly mistaken. Whatever you think is going on, I am certainly not a part of it.”

“Certainly,” Beth groaned, she glanced at the door to her right sunlight streaming though the panel curtains, “this go out to the back?” At Alison’s nod Beth left through the door.


	3. Cosima Niehaus

It was a week before Beth got any results back on her fingerprints. In those seven days Beth had spent less than twelve hours sleeping and exactly zero minutes talking to Alison Hendrix. The email came in the middle of the night, and Beth might have missed it if she’d been asleep. With each passing day her restlessness grew, she worried about the German, constantly checking the burner she’d purchased to see if her only contact had sent a text message. Every time she Skyped with Katja it was a whole new trip. They were truly identical, straight down to the panic and exhaustion that haunted their twin eyes. The less sleep Katja got, the less Beth got as well.

Paul was on edge in a way he hadn’t been in months, pressing about her overuse of her medication and lack of sleep. She brushed him off, her love for him overshadowed by the pull in her gut to solve this mystery. She’d walked Katja through the process of acquiring essential paperwork for each of their European doubles. When her phone went off she was standing over her printer, her eyes eagerly monitoring the printing of Katja Obinger’s birth certificate. Her phone, along with the few bits of information she’d cobbled together were strewn across the floor of her office, her laptop was open amongst the mess; Katja’s face choppily moved on the screen- the internet connection at the motel she was staying at that night left something to be desired.

Beth stretched a leg out and used her bare foot to pull the phone closer to her, squinting down at it, trying to read the screen without bending down. The printer finished and clutching the page Beth gingerly sat down on the floor, trying not to wake Paul who was asleep in their bedroom located directly below the office. She pulled her knees up to her chest, her calves flush against the backs of her thighs and her ankles crossed. She cracked each toe on a foot with one hand while the other unlocked her phone. “Fuck,” she spat out the pen she’d been holding in her mouth, “it’s the fingerprint results.”

“Yes?” Katja’s voice sounded robotic thanks to the unreliable connection.

Beth’s heart leapt with excitement when she saw the mug shot. “It’s a twin!” She thrust a fist in the air and momentarily forgot to stay quiet, rocking back onto her tailbone she kicked her legs into the air, her heels banging alternately against the floor.

“Tell me!” Beth was pleased to see a rare smile on her friend’s face.

The detective cleared her throat, “Cosima Niehaus, from…” Beth squinted, “San Francisco.” She turned the phone to face the camera so Katja could see their newly acquired puzzle piece. Their new twin was smiling in her mug shot, her pronounced canines catching the flash of the camera; her shaved head was tilted to the right, the dark shadow of her buzz cut made her look hard and troublesome, it was a strange amalgamation of features giving off daring mixed signals. She held her placard in one hand, the other was giving Beth the peace sign. Cosima Niehaus was an enigma if Beth had ever seen one. Her own canines worried the inside of her cheek and she muttered, mostly to herself, but loud enough for Katja to hear, “Marijuana possession, trespassing, failure to disperse at a rally.”

A sudden knock at the door made Beth’s body jerk violently, she slammed shut her laptop and leapt up. She raced the turning of the knob and made it to the door just as Paul was opening it, catching it with a hand and stopping it from swinging open very far. “Hey babe,” She smiled at him. His heavy brow was furrowed in a way that made his usually beautiful face seem brutal and ugly. She could barely make out his twisted features in the dim light.

“Beth, it’s four in the morning, what the fuck are you doing?” His voice cracked with sleep, “I heard pounding.”

The sour taste Paul had been leaving in her mouth over the past few days faded in the light of her victory. “I’m sorry, Paul, I had a bit of a breakthrough on my case.” She noticed his eyes moving past her into the room, and she carefully canted her shoulders to take up more room in the doorway, throwing her free hand on her hip, jutting her elbow into the empty space to her right.

The furrow between his eyes deepened and he grunted, clearly displeased. “Come to bed, Beth. You’ve been working yourself to death.”

“I would, but, ah…” She glanced over her shoulder to the pile of papers on the floor, her burner lighting up from underneath a sheet, filling the room with diffused light.

Paul sighed, “Yeah, your case, I got it.” He turned toward the stairs but he only made it a few steps before he stopped and turned back to her, “Beth, this isn’t a life. You’ve been acting crazy all week. I’m worried about you.” His words were concerned but his voice was bitter and full of something Beth thought sounded like contempt.

The corners of her mouth pulled back, pressing her lips into a flat line, “Paul…” there was that sour taste, “go back to bed, I’ve got work to do.” There was a dangerous lilt to the sentence and she was thankful that Paul took the hint and walked down the stairs without another word. When he reached the bottom she turned back into the room and shut the door behind her. “Whatever,” she muttered to herself, she dropped cross-legged to the floor and dug under the papers to find her burner.

‘Everything is good, Beth?’

‘Yeah, just Paul. Are you going to try and get some sleep?’ It was day time in Berlin, but they slept when they could.

‘I think so, yes. I am feeling better since we have found another sister.’

Beth rolled her eyes, though they’d proven that the twins had all come from different pairs of parents, Katja still insisted on referring to each of them as her ‘sisters’. ‘Sleep tight, I’ll update you on anything else I find when you wake up.’

There was a long pause before the German responded. ‘You should try to sleep as well, Elizabeth Childs.’

The backs of her eyelids felt like sandpaper, but there was still a lot of work to be done. They had identified another twin, but tracking her down would be another task all together. Beth slowly felt the air deflate from her lungs. She picked up her work phone and swiped back to Cosima Niehaus’ mug shot. This woman was different somehow. While Beth saw parts of herself in Katja, and even Alison to some extent she couldn’t imagine having anything in common with the cocky, rebellious grin gazing back at her.

Cosima’s last known address and phone number were among the attached information, Beth glanced at the time--it was far to early to be calling California. What would she say when she did get in contact with Cosima Niehaus? Beth flashed back to Alison’s kitchen and without warning the elation she’d felt just moments before was completely gone. How could she protect these women if she couldn’t even convince them to listen to her?

And just like that Beth was hollow again.

***

Cosima Niehaus wasn’t as hard to track down as Beth had anticipated, a simple Facebook search brought up that fangy grin in no time. She was studying at the University of Minnesota, and Beth felt a rush of hope when she saw the science related content on the new twin’s page. The phone number on Cosima’s mug shot had a San Francisco area code, but Beth tried it anyway.

Using the information from Facebook, it wasn’t difficult for Beth to convince Cosima’s mother that she was an old friend from high school. Just half an hour after typing her name into the search bar, Beth had a recent phone number. She bit the inside of her cheek, her thumb hovering over the ‘call’ icon on her phone. Did she want to call this woman? She was a criminal, after all. A criminal and a scientist, Beth thought, a biologist. If there was one thing she needed, it was a biologist. Beth remembered Alison’s angry eyes and took a deep breath, her thumb hit the glass of her screen and the phone began to ring.

Holding it to her ear, Beth stood from the floor of her office. She’d fallen asleep there last night, the ball of stress taking up space in her ribcage hadn’t gone away with a few hours of rest. Her burner chimed and she glanced down at the screen, ‘Have you had any luck?’

‘I’m calling her right now, I’ll Skype you in a while.’

“Hello?” Cosima’s voice sounded like a chirp, Beth wasn’t sure what to say. “Um, hello?” Cosima filled the silence for the both of them.

“Cosima Niehaus?”

“Speaking?”

Beth grabbed a pack of gum off of her desk and pushed against a piece with her thumb until it busted free of the blister pack. “My name is Elizabeth Childs.”

There was more silence before Cosima’s confused voice came over the line again, “Well, hi…Elizabeth Childs.”

Beth popped the gum in her mouth, biting down on it with her molars. “I have a lot I need to discuss with you, but the phone isn’t the best…option.” She looked down at her computer, “It’s kind of a visual thing. Do you have a computer?”

“Uh, yeah, of course.” Cosima said, Beth could hear her moving across the line, the creak of a chair. “What is this about?”

“I’d like to show you. I think I have some information you might find…scientifically interesting.” Beth hoped to appeal to the woman’s interests and it worked. She could almost hear the smile spreading across Cosima’s face.

“Scientifically interesting? Alright, I’ll bite. What’s your screen name?”

Beth heard the rapid clacking of fingers against a keyboard. “BethChilds84.”

“84? Is that the year you were born?”

“Yes.” Beth sat back down on the floor. She’d printed out Cosima’s mug shot and it sat across the keyboard of her laptop, she pushed it out of the way and typed in her password.

“Me too!” Cosima laughed, “March 9th!”

Beth furrowed her brow, why on earth was Cosima sharing her birthday with a complete stranger. She cleared her throat, “Yeah, that’s kind of part of it.”

“What do you mean?” Cosima asked. A Skype call was coming in from Cos420haus. Cos420haus? Of course. Beth rolled her eyes and clicked the green call button.

Cosima looked quite different than she did in her decade-old mug shot--her hair was in long dreadlocks now, they gave her a softer look that was a drastic contrast to the buzz cut of her late teens. Cosima’s glasses were also different— they suited her more, Beth thought, so did the dreads. Cosima’s smile dropped slowly and her painted eyes began to narrow. She was squinting and moving her face closer to the screen.

“A visual conversation, like I said.” Beth said, looking directly into the camera so Cosima could scrutinize her face as Katja had once done for her.

“Holy shit,” was all Cosima said.

It was an appropriate response, Beth decided. “Yeah.”

“What…who are you?”

“I’m a cop, in Toronto.” Cosima’s nose crinkled at the word ‘cop’, “I was contacted last week by a German woman who looks…” Beth gestured from her chest to the screen, “who looks like us.” Cosima’s eyebrows shot up her forehead and she leaned backwards heavily in her chair, it tilted behind her. Beth could see smoke rising from somewhere below the camera and she pressed her lips together tightly. “She had proof…drivers licenses from all over Europe.”

“Others?” Beth nodded in answer to Cosima’s question. “How many?”

“Six. The German, three drivers licenses, myself…” She trailed off…and Alison.

Cosima was keeping count on her fingers, between the knuckles of her ringed index and middle Beth could see a joint. Cos420haus, she sighed. “That’s only five.”

“Alison. She lives here in Toronto.”

Cosima’s lips bent into a frown and she nodded, “seven people, all identical?”

Beth nodded. “Looks that way.” Cosima’s eyes moved to her ceiling and Beth could see the gears turning.

“I have pictures from the day I was born, I’m an only child…”

“Same. With all of us.”

“Fuck,” the scientist drew out the word, “this is heavy stuff.”

Beth felt a smudge of confidence, it was heavy stuff, but Cosima was taking this much better than Alison had. “You study science, right? Biology? You could give us some answers.”

“Yeah, I’d love to,” Cosima seemed like she was about to speak, but Beth could see her mind change directions in a split second, “I’d need to run some tests to find out if we’re related. This is…” she blew out a lungful of air.

“What kind of tests? What’s our first step in this?”

“I’d like to look at our DNA. It’s possible we have a relative in common, I guess. I’ll need blood samples from all of us, I can sequence my own genome here but it’s not much good without something to compare it to.” The dreadlocked woman spun her chair in a full circle before settling back to face the camera, her burning joint dangling between her lips.

Beth sighed, obviously blood tests would be the first step, “I could mail you some blood, would that work?”

Cosima shrugged in response, “I guess, don’t you want to meet though? Man, this is crazy, Beth, look at you!”

Beth closed her eyes and thought about it, Minnesota wasn’t far, it was closer than Berlin anyway. “Yeah, I can probably swing something.” It would be nice to meet a twin that didn’t hate her, Cosima’s voice was full of an excitement Beth hadn’t expected. As a matter of fact, she’d expected everything other than excitement from the other woman.

“And…Alison? Is that her name?”

Beth’s jaw clenched. “I don’t think Alison is going to be an option, Cosima.” The German was online, Beth paused and hovered her mouse over the contact. “Hey, give me a second.” She opened up the call to Katja and when her face came up on the screen, Beth almost laughed at the heavy silence.

“Katja, Cosima. Cosima, Katja--the German.”

“Dude, this is complex.” Cosima had her face up to the screen again, inspecting Katja’s features.


	4. Art Bell

Hands on her knees, Beth took a shaky breath. She’d been running for nearly an hour, she wasn’t ready to stop but her start of shift was rapidly approaching. Cosima was nuts, she thought, happy to meet her? She couldn’t understand the woman’s excitement. Outside of being glad for an encounter so different from her recent run-in with Alison, Beth wasn’t excited about any of this. While finding another twin had given her the momentary satisfaction of passing an insurmountable hurdle, it still didn’t change the fact that they had so many unanswered questions--as a matter of fact, it just dredged up more. Beth worried that with every piece of the puzzle she found, she’d notice five more missing from the box. It was stressing her out. She was covered in sweat and needed to turn back for the station if she expected to get a shower in before she needed to start her shift.

Art was only a few paces behind, drenched in sweat. He pulled the hem of his shirt up to wipe his face. “Christ, Beth, why don’t you save a little energy, give the rest of us mere mortals a fighting chance.”

“You’re the one who wanted to run with me,” she smiled. The gentle tug at the corners of her lips felt good, felt normal. She flung the back of her hand out to smack him in the stomach. “It’s about time to head back for a shower, Dipshit. Our shift is starting soon and I don’t want you stinking up the cruiser all day.” The joke slid out naturally and Beth was thankful that whatever change she felt internally wasn’t obvious to anyone else.

She checked her pulse against the runner’s watch she kept tight against the inside of her wrist and let her mind drift back to the idea of meeting Cosima. Art was saying something in the background, but it was lost in the haze of her own internal bullshit. She was on edge, and Cosima’s exuberance was nearly more than she could take. Between the scientist and the German she had her hands full, the two had spoken at length, their rapid back and forth had given Beth a headache. She had said very little after opening their Skype call to Katja, but her doubles had barely noticed, they riffed off of each other for two and a half hours before Beth requested a break to stretch her legs and lungs, she needed to go to work and Art had been calling her non-stop. It was a good excuse to placate him as well.

But running with him was distracting, he joked about the weather and the collars they’d brought in last week and asked her questions about running marathons. She needed to decide what to do, her road of action was approaching a junction, and though she wasn’t sure which path to take she knew protecting Katja was her first priority. The threat was ever present, and though it was an ocean away it also lived in Beth. It built a home behind her throat, causing a constant pressure there; it vacationed in her chest, like a vice around her heart. She urged Katja to continue moving, a new motel every other night.

Cosima needed blood samples, Beth thought, it’s the next step to untangling this mess. As much as she didn’t want to stand face to face with another twin, she wanted answers more and meeting Cosima was the most direct route to getting them. Beth was sure she’d be able to make time for a trip to meet Cosima. As they slowed to a trot in front of the station, Beth put her hand on Art’s chest, she could feel his heart pounding. “Hey I think I need to take a few days off later this week. Not long, just an early weekend. I’ll talk to the LT when we get in there.”

He eyed her carefully, obviously wanting details, but he let it go and nodded, offering his fist for a bump as they split ways towards the men’s and women’s locker rooms.

***

She intended to bee-line for the Lieutenant’s office to request the next Thursday and Friday off, but as she walked in the door of the bullpen the she was immediately bombarded by the Lieutenant and DeAngelis who was waving a file folder in her face.

“I’ve been sitting on this for hours, you two don’t answer your phones anymore?” Her voice was grating, “You’ve got a case, take your coffee for the road”

“Take Angie, she’s driving me fucking crazy.” The Lieutenant added.

Beth nodded through gritted teeth, of course they had a case. She dropped her briefcase off in it’s spot under her desk and made her way to the coffee cart. DeAngelis followed her and caught her up on the details of the file. All of her cases from the past two weeks were tied up in analysis, the day she decides to take a vacation there is a jewelry store robbery? As she fit the lid on her cardboard cup she decided that a robbery was just what she needed to clear her head. Something simple and easy, a couple of dumbasses doing a smash-and-grab, the collar would help--she needed a win right now.

The drive to the scene of the robbery was relatively peaceful, Beth had the window rolled down and was breathing in the fresh, afternoon air. Angie was in the back seat, loud-mouthing into the speaker of her cellphone, the ear-piece wasn’t even remotely close to her head. Art seemed to be in a good mood, happy to be out of the station, he hated being cooped up--normally Beth liked that about him, it was a trait they shared. She dug in her pocket for the blister pack of gum she carried, offering Art and Angie each a piece and popping one in her own mouth as well. “How are you doing, Childs?” He said it quietly and she could barely make it out over Angie yelling at her good for nothing boyfriend over the phone.

She stifled a sigh, she knew Art was just being a good partner, looking out for her, but she didn’t have the strength to deal with the conversation she knew was coming.

He took her hesitation as a rebuff and continued, glancing back to make sure DeAngelis was heavily invested in her very loud personal phone call, “Listen, Beth, I know you’ve got this whole big bad cop thing going, I get it--I do. We all do.” He paused, Beth could feel his eyes against the side of her head, “I’ve seen the notes piling up on your desk, all those missed calls from Dr. Bowers.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off, “--depression isn’t something to fool around with, Beth. I’ve seen a lot of cops go down like that, this job…it does something to you.”

“I’m fine, Dipshit, let’s just worry about--“

“Uh-uh, no, I’m being serious about this. I know you’ve been struggling for the past few months, don’t think I haven’t noticed the pills--“

“Enough, Art. I’m serious.” Her voice came out harder than she had expected, but Art bit his tongue. She softened her voice, “I’m sorry. You’re right, things are getting hard again. I’ll call Bowers when we get back to the station.” He seemed satisfied with this.

They drove for a few miles, the only sound between them the crackle of the radio, the wind coming in through the window, Beth quietly chewing her gum, and Angela DeAngelis cursing into her Blackberry. “What is the time off for?”

Beth’s mind blanked for a moment before she remembered mentioning her vacation request to Art. “A--uh…a family emergency.” Beth closed her eyes tightly, keeping her face turned towards the gust of air so Art couldn’t see her expression. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

Art chewed on that for a moment while they pulled up to Sun Jewelry. Beth knew what he was thinking. In the year and a half they’d worked together she had never once mentioned her family. “Family?”

“I said I don’t want to talk about it, Dipshit. Let’s go, it looks like half the damn force is here already. You know how much I hate being late to the party.” She smacked his arm with the back of her hand and shut the door behind her. She slid her hand to her hip to rest on her holster, snapping her gum and squinting up into the spring sunshine. DeAngelis was already curbside, taking the scene in through her aviators. There were quite a few officers and techs present collecting evidence from the scene, taking pictures tire treads and broken glass. “Any witnesses?” Beth threw over her shoulder.

“No one was here, the place was empty, and no one in the neighborhood called it in. Store alarm went off.” Angela responded, stopping by Beth to look down at the rubber skid. “Looks like they jetted out of here in a hurry, this looks like broken traction halfway down the road.”

Beth’s eyebrows rose, “All this smashing glass? A car tearing out of here? No witnesses at all?” She wasn’t convinced. “The owner in there?” She asked a nearby officer, pointing towards the store. At the officer’s nod she walked through the front door, which had been propped open. She carefully stepped over more glass--the store’s carpet, which was at one point plush and dark blue, was covered in it. All of the display cases were broken and large portions of the shop had been cleaned out. “Fuck, what was the response time on the alarm?”

“Six minutes, the place was cleared out before we got here.” Art said.

“Must have been a group, to do this much damage and get away with everything in six minutes.” Beth thought out loud.

“They got in my safe!” A portly older European man pointed to a doorway leading to the store’s back room. “They took everything from inside and all the most valuables out here, they leave the junk!”

Art nodded, “A group of professionals, definitely.”

Beth squinted in thought, gesturing DeAngelis to talk to the owner and turning to the open door. Tilting her head and moving through it Beth was met with the open door of a medium sized safe, she crouched and reached out with the end of her pen, swinging the door shut. Sure enough it had holes drilled clean through it. “How are you feeling, Art?” She threw over her shoulder.

“Like I’m seriously hoping they messed up somewhere.” His eyes were pointed towards the ceiling, Beth followed his gaze to see black spray paint coating the lens of the camera that looked down over the safe.

A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth, Cosima disappeared in the rush Beth felt at the prospect of such an exciting case. “Professionals,” she muttered. “You ever seen a safe like this cracked in six minutes?”

***


	5. Minnesota

By the time they’d returned from the Sun Jewelry heist, Beth had completely changed her mind about taking a vacation. She’d even texted Cosima, apologizing and offering to send the blood via the postage system. Paul’s warning haunted her, “this isn’t a life, Beth.” She worried she was losing him. But the prospect of an exciting case was way more intriguing than dealing with her own personal downward spiral. She sat at her desk, picking at a blueberry muffin and chatting with the IT guy Raj when the Lieutenant’s voice boomed through the bullpen. “Childs, in my office, now!” Beth nearly spit out her muffin. Raj raised his eyebrows in condolence and wheeled away his cart full of gadgets.

Though she had rehearsed her speech at least ten times in the mirror, she hadn’t needed it when she finally had a chance to speak with the Lieutenant. He was hunched over the newspaper when she walked through his office door, half a donut in his hand, crumbs dotting his face--the sight had made Beth cringe. “Bell told me you were thinking about taking a vacation.” He put down his paper and leaned back in his chair, looking her over sternly.

“I was, but I changed my mind, I can reschedule, the Ramsay thing just came up and--“

“You rescheduled a family emergency?” Beth floundered. “A year and a half under me and not a single day off, no vacation, no sick days, nothing. And I’m sick and tired of the bitching from the weekend crew, they hate you hanging around all the time. You’re taking the time off Childs.”

She pressed him about the Sun Jewelry heist, but he waved her off gruffly. “DeAngelis can cover it until you get back. Now get out of my sight, Childs. I don’t want to hear your voice until Monday.” She hadn’t planned on leaving until Thursday, but the Lieutenant stood and started moving around the side of his desk, waving her out of his office. He shut the door behind her and when she turned back to look he was eyeing her firmly through the blinds. She let out a long sigh and headed home to Skype Cosima.

***

To say that Paul was unhappy about Beth leaving on a trip so suddenly would be a gross understatement. He angrily blocked her path to the front door, leaving Beth standing with a heavy duffle bag and a tired expression. “I can’t believe you’re just leaving.”

“I’m not leaving, Paul, I’ll be back in a few days.” She made a move to step around him but he mirrored her with a step to the left. “Godammit, Paul. Get the fuck out of the way!”

“Not until you explain this to me.” He didn’t look hurt, Beth couldn’t help but notice, he looked…inconvenienced. It stung more than a little.

She sighed and shifted the weight of her bag, “I told you, Genny needs some help getting set up. She’s finally leaving that abusive bag of dicks she calls a husband.”

Paul was clearly not convinced, but Beth’s patience was wearing thin and she was very sure that if he didn’t move in the next five seconds she was going to throttle him. “You’re sure this has nothing to do with the case you’ve been working on, crawling out of bed once you think I’ve fallen asleep? I’m not stupid, Beth.”

She bit her tongue from snarking back, she softened her voice and closed the distance between them, placing a hand on his muscular chest. “I’m sure, Paul. I know things have been a little rough lately, but when I get back we’ll take some time to work on us, okay?” He broke eye contact, looking over her head instead, clearly still unhappy about the situation; he stepped out of the way though, which was all Beth really wanted. She brushed past him, trailing her hand until her fingertips ran out of shirt and shoulder to run against.

***

The fifteen hour trip was longer than Beth cared to be alone with her thoughts. Occasionally she’d catch a look at her face in the rear-view mirror and cringe, the sleepless nights were rendering her unrecognizable. Was it the sleepless nights, she thought, or was it Katja she was seeing in her reflection--her throat a gaping, bloody wound? Or was it Cosima, neck snapped at a vicious angle? Or even Alison, eyes cloudy and lifeless? She pushed the thoughts back, reaching for the glove box and the relief it held within.

She stopped as infrequently as she could, desperate to shave time off the drive. Sleep wasn’t an option, and she passed motel after motel as the moon traveled across the murky black sky.

By the time she finally found herself walking up the stairs of Cosima’s building, Beth could feel every inch of her body, inside and out, in intense detail--each breath, the way they moved down her windpipe, the way her lungs stretched, the way her chest spread open. She felt the skin of her knuckles dip into the tiniest grains in the wood of Cosima’s door when she tapped at it. She swore she could feel the sound waves reverberating through her ears at Cosima’s curse, muffled by distance and the heavy door.

Suddenly there was nothing between them, Beth’s brown eyes were on Cosima’s and it was just like staring into that fucking mirror…except that Cosima looked well, whole, her cheeks were pink and round. The double smiled with her whole mouth and with an open, sweeping gesture, she invited Beth into the apartment. “Welcome,” she stretched the word, Beth’s eyes traveled down the woman, she was wearing a spaghetti strap tank top and pajama pants. “Sorry,” Cosima laughed, noticing Beth’s gaze, “I swear I was planning on getting dressed, I--uh, have a tendency to be sort of…last minute.” Her hands were moving in broad circles, “Nothing you haven’t seen before though, right?” She laughed at her own joke, it was open and loud in a way that could have made Beth flinch.

“Are you coming in or not?”

Beth’s eyebrows raised and she internally shouted at herself to snap out of the confused haze caused by the long drive. “Yeah, sorry.” She walked into the studio apartment, it was warm and smelled faintly of marijuana and incense. Beth made note of Cosima’s computer, the angle of the screen pointing back towards the bedroom, it was a backdrop she recognized from their Skype calls. The other woman shut the door behind her.

“I’d hug you, but you don’t seem like much of a hugger,” the student said awkwardly.

“You…would not be wrong about that.” Beth gave Cosima her best smile between turning this way and that, inspecting her surroundings.

It was silent for a moment, the two women staring into each other’s eyes. Beth would never get used to this, she was certain, but Cosima was eerily relaxed and her face was brimming with excited curiosity. “So, are we going to stand around and gawk or are we going to get going on this?!” Cosima’s animated hands clapped against each other and rubbed together eagerly. “I cannot wait to check out your DNA!” She said in the same way one would deliver a dirty joke.

Beth breathed a sigh of relief, there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to have this woman check out her DNA.

Cosima moved into the bedroom and came back with a small plastic box in one hand and a bottle of rubbing alcohol in the other, tangled in between her fingers were a length of flat blue rubber and a pair of cotton balls. “Take off your jacket, Studly. Have a seat.” She set the load down on her desk and pulled out a chair that was nestled underneath it. Beth nodded and steeled herself, shrugging out of her pea coat and sitting. Cosima spun the chair so that they were facing each other for a moment before she disappeared back into the bedroom. She spoke over her shoulder, her voice light and musical, “So I was talking to the German earlier, she’s worried you’re not getting enough sleep, and Beth--I gotta say, you’re not looking so great. You didn’t even stop last night, did you?”

She didn’t have time to look great. “I’ve been a bit busy trying to hunt down my identical twins before a crazed killer finds them. You know how it is, not much time to touch up the eyeliner.”

Cosima poked her head around the doorframe with a surprised smile plastered smack dab between her ears, “Holy shit. Officer Childs, did you just make a joke?” Beth turned the chair towards the other woman, one eyebrow raised. “Oh man, I cannot believe it.”

A ghost of a smile crossed Beth’s lips and with a slow ease Cosima melted around the corner, pushing her hands into a pair of black gloves, “You allergic to latex, Beth?” The detective shook her head, “Alrighty then, let’s do the damn thing, huh?” She twisted her mouth to the side of her face as she said it, waggling her eyebrows and dropping to one knee in front of Beth. She wet a cotton ball with the alcohol and wiped at the inside of Beth’s elbow. The spot felt cold despite the warm air of the apartment. The scientist grabbed the ribbon of rubber next and tied it deftly around the downward slope of Beth’s bicep in a practiced motion. The detective squeezed her hand in a fist, flexing her arm while Cosima tilted her head, eyes flicking between the spot she intended to stick and Beth’s face. Next Cosima pulled a plastic cap out of the box, she removed the needle guard and, without ceremony, slid it home into Beth’s now protruding vein, her gaze moving back up to Beth’s face to look for signs of discomfort. “We good?”

Beth nodded in answer, “Yeah, no problem.” Cosima flashed that smiled at her and dropped back down to her work, the fingers of her free hand loosened the tourniquet before reaching across their bodies to grab a Vacutainer off of the desk. The motion made her thumb press into the needle, Beth’s jaw tightened against the pain. If Cosima noticed, she didn’t say anything, bringing the tube over and snapping it into place inside the cap. They watched the answers to all of their questions spill into the Vacutainer. Beth finished tugging the ribbon off of her own arm and dropped it on the desk next to the rest of Cosima’s supplies. When it was full, the scientist pulled the tube out of the needle holder and set it on the desk, the shift causing another twinge of pain. She pressed a cotton ball to the place where the needle entered Beth’s arm and slid the thing out.

“Shit,” she muttered, “hold this for a sec?” Beth pressed a thumb against the fluff of cotton, cupping the bend of her elbow in her hand and watched Cosima pull herself into a standing position with the aid of her desk. The student dipped into her bedroom and came back out moments later with a roll of waterproof tape, it was the same brand Beth had in her first-aid kit at home. She popped the plastic container open and pulled the tape out, ripping a piece free with the side of a tooth. Back to her knees, she replaced Beth’s thumb with the medical tape and clapped her gloved hands against Beth’s forearm. “All done.” She looked up into the detective’s face.

“Thanks,” Beth said, they sat quietly for a moment, “and thanks for meeting me.”

Cosima nodded and sat back on her heels, looking pleased but not smug. “I know you were anxious about it. Katja told me that meeting Alison really messed with your head.”

“It didn’t mess with my head,” Beth spoke quickly, maybe too quickly--because Cosima’s eyebrow quirked. “It didn’t mess with my head,” she repeated, calmly this time, “it just…”

“Hey, you don’t have to justify to me.” Cosima raised her hands, “It’s just--well it looks like we’re kind of, you know, in this together,” she pulled the gloves off of her hands and slipped the guard back on the needle. “We’ve got to look out for each other, you know?”

Beth didn’t know why she was surprised at the sincerity in Cosima’s voice. “That’s what I’m trying to do, look out for everyone.”

“Well, I’ll get us some answers.” The scientist leaned her weight against the desk, stretching her arm across it, going for a pen that was just out of reach. Beth shifted forward in her chair, grabbing the pen and handing it to her.

“Here.”

“Thanks.” Cosima spun the Vacutainer until it was label side up, she wrote ‘Beth 05-11-12’ and punctuated it with a smiley face.

“Our handwriting is very different,” Beth chuckled, leaning over to look at the label.

“Well,” Cosima looked up at her, smiling openly, “we’re very different.”

Beth couldn’t help noticing that she was feeling better in that moment than she had since she answered the German’s call. Cosima wasn’t at all what she expected, the bravado in her mug shot had turned to compassion with age, and for that Beth was thankful.


	6. Scarborough

Beth had only just fallen into a restless asleep when Cosima’s hurried footsteps stirred her. Her eyelashes fluttered until she was seeing darkness once more. After four hours of tossing and turning she wasn’t ready to lift her weight. She could hear Cosima pausing, she almost smiled at the sound of the other woman’s indecision. The scientist spun away from the bed only to spin back twice before reaching for Beth, hands up, palms out, in a placating gesture. “Uh, Beth?” Beth buried herself deeper into Cosima’s sheets. Before taking Beth’s blood sample to the campus lab, her double had emphatically gestured toward her bed, urging Beth to at least try to get some sleep. The blankets were thick and downy and Beth’s body was breaking down--she hit the pillows like a pile of bricks. It smelled like sex and weed but it was by far the most comfortable bed Beth had ever laid in. “B-Beth?”

“Yeah, Cosima?”

“Did you manage to get some sleep?”

The detective rolled to look at Cosima, her annoyed and bagged eyes speaking volumes.

The pleasantries were over--“The genome…it’s done. I uh…” Beth’s brow furrowed, Cosima sounded…confused, surprised, startled? The joyful excitement that usually lined her voice was replaced by a nervous one. “We should--I don’t know….talk about this?”

Beth sat up quickly, the concern in her double’s voice snapping her out of her comfortable haze. “What is it? Did you figure it out?”

“Uh, no. No, not exactly.” Cosima’s hands weren’t waving about like they normally did, they were pressing into her stomach, fingers twisted in a mangled mess over her solar plexus.

“What’s up, Cosima? Come on.” She patted the bed beside her and Cosima took the invitation, sitting on folded leg. “Did you find a common relative?”

“Not…exactly…”

Beth sighed impatiently and stood, moving into the living space to Cosima’s desk, her fingers playing at the ash tray there, picking up a butted-out joint and walking it to Cosima who took it gratefully. Beth sucked on the inside of her cheek, looking around for a lighter. “Top drawer,” Cosima kicked out the foot that wasn’t under her towards her night stand. Beth retrieved the lighter and after an unnaturally large hit Cosima began to speak. “We’re twins. But we’re not twins…born on different days, in different countries. I--“

Beth cut her off, “That’s nothing we don’t already know, Cosima.”

The other woman shushed her, sweet smelling smoke billowing out of her lungs. “Let me finish,” she took another drag, resting her hand on her knee, “when I say we’re twins I don’t mean we look alike, I mean we’re twin-twins, you and I.” She paused, but Beth still looked confused, “Beth, we’re genetic identicals.” She hissed the words like they were hot to the touch and burning her tongue.

The detective’s eyebrows shot up, “So we’re twins? Actual twins?” Her feelings for Cosima were more parental than sororal.

“I need to do more tests, Beth, this is some heavy shit.”

“Yeah, sure, of course, what do you need?” Beth looked down at her own body, as if some piece of it held the answer’s to Cosima’s worrisome problem.

Cosima sighed, “You’re not going to like it,” Beth said nothing, imagining the worst, and just stared at her until she finished--“I need to meet Alison.”

It was worse than she’d thought.

“No.” Beth was a sudden blur of movement, her head shaking and hands making frantic ‘stop’ motions.

“Beth, think about this. I’m a month older, and Alison three days younger than you--but the science isn’t wrong, you and I are twins. I need a sample from Alison, I need to compare her genome to ours.”

Beth sighed and ran a hand down her face, she needed her pills.

“That’s not all.”

The detective stopped still, turning slowly and leveling a glare at Cosima, waiting for the woman to continue.

“I need you to call your mother."

 

***

If Cosima didn’t stop fiddling with the radio Beth was going to kill her. She was going to reach right across the negative space between them and wrap her hands around Cosima’s delicate neck and squeeze. “Sorry, I’m a little ADDJ today. This is just a lot to think about. Do you mind if I smoke?”

Beth glared at her, “You’d better throw that shit out before we get to the border.”

“If you let me smoke I’ll make sure it’s all gone by the time we get there,” Cosima waggled her brows, they peeked up over the rim of her cat-eye glasses.

She ignored her twin, “So you need me to find out the details of my parents ‘boning me into existence’?” She used Cosima’s exact words.

“Mmm,” dreadlocks bounced around the other woman’s face, “yeah. I’ve got a lead, an…idea. It’s a little farfetched.” She paused, “It’s a lot farfetched.” Beth looked at her pointedly so she continued, “Clones, dude.”

“Excuse me?” Beth nearly spit out the coffee she was nursing. She fit it back into the cup holder between them and turned her upper body entirely to face Cosima, the seatbelt cutting into the slope of her neck.

“Hey, eyes on the road, Stud. You’re going to get us killed.”

Beth turned slowly back to face the windshield. “You’re joking, right? Please tell me this is some science joke.”

“Science doesn’t joke,” Cosima held a black Bic lighter in her left hand, in her right she was flipping an unlit joint end over end between her fingers--Beth recognized the motion as one she often did with her pens. “Well, that’s not true, science can be deeply comedic,” at Beth’s glare she got back on track, “but no--I’m not joking. I thought it was ridiculous, I pushed it to the back of my mind, but I couldn’t let it go. I called my mom--“

“She’s a very nice woman.” Beth interrupted.

Cosima looked at her, surprised, “You spoke to my mother?”

The detective quirked a brow at her, flashing fang. “How do you think I found you, Niehaus?”

Cosima sighed and continued, “I can’t have kids, so I thought it might be genetic, so I called her and asked her about my conception.”

“I bet that was a fun conversation.”

“Fun, no, but enlightening yes,” She smacked Beth’s shoulder with the back of her lighter hand. “My parents struggled for years to conceive naturally before eventually turning to in vitro fertilization.” She stressed the last words, like they held the answer to every question they had.

“In vitro?” Beth chewed her lip. “So you think I could be an in vitro baby too?”

“I don’t know. If you are…” Cosima finally gave up on waiting for permission and lit her joint, cracking the window and letting out a smoky breath, “then we’re going to have some complex shit to think about.”

“Are you sure there--“

“Beth! I’ve been wracking my brain about this all week, and not to brag, but I have a very, very big brain. Clones is all I got, so…” She leaned forward, Beth thought she was going for the radio dial again, but she was grabbing the cell phone out of the nook it was resting in, holding it out in Beth’s direction. “Whenever you’re ready, Officer.”

Beth snatched the phone out of her hand, “Detective. I’m a detective.”

“Well, you’re a shitty one,” Cosima joked, trying in vain to blow a smoke ring. She jumped up in her seat, pointing excitedly to the exit, “Ooo! Get off here, Dunkin’ Donuts!”

***

“No, no, no.” Beth imagined the stream of no’s would be never-ending. Before Alison could slam the door in her face she jammed her foot against the base of the door. Alison had her full body weight against the it, pushing as hard as she could, but Beth was shoving back. They were evenly matched and the door wasn’t budging.

“Alison.” It was an irritated growl that rumbled up from the pit of Beth’s soul. “Stop being a child and let us in.”

The pressure from Alison’s side of the door suddenly went slack and Beth nearly tripped over herself falling into the house. “Us?” Alison asked, her voice incredulous.

Beth sighed and righted herself, she leaned heavily on an arm against the doorframe and gestured under her arm to Cosima who was wearing a sheepish grin and scuffing her shoes against the concrete of Alison’s porch, she offered a half-hearted wave to match her head tilt.

“Oh my,” Alison’s hand flew to her face before she turned on her heel and marched into the kitchen.

Beth looked over her shoulder at Cosima and gave her a smile that screamed ‘I told you so.’ She tromped, exasperated, after Alison with Cosima hot on her heels. By the time they got to the kitchen, Alison had a wine glass up-ended against her lips, draining its contents. When it was empty she refilled it.

Cosima looked uncomfortable in the silence but she extended a hand in greeting, “A-Alison, right? I’m Cosima.”

After a hefty gulp Alison turned with angry brown eyes to shoot daggers at Beth before spinning to face Cosima, she did not return the handshake, “Hello…Cosima. I’m not sure what Elizabeth told you, but I’m not int--“

“Alison,” Cosima cut her off, hand falling momentarily to her side before rolling at the wrist as if doing warm ups, prepared to launch into an elaborate dance. Beth remembered the photographs of Alison’s kids in the living room and brushed past Cosima on her way out of the kitchen, squeezing the scientists shoulder for support as she passed, “I know this is a confusing situation, but I’m a PHD student…evolutionary developmental biology…” her hands spoke volumes, filling the space between her confident words and the awkward tension in the room, “I can give us answers.”

“Answers?” Alison was still tense, but she set her glass down and seemed to settle at the word.

“Yeah, I-I’ve got a few already, but I could really use your help to finalize some things.”

Beth’s voice echoed in from the living room. "You adopted.” It wasn’t spoken as a question--Alison’s children were clearly mixed race, but the photographs of her husband showed a man as white as pure driven Canadian snow.

Alison’s jaw clenched and she responded, loud enough for Beth to hear her in the living room. “Yes,” she moved past Cosima to find Beth, hands deep in her pockets, eyeing the portraits of Alison’s children lining the walls of the living room. “I am…unable to conceive.”

Cosima’s eyebrows shot up, “Did you have that looked into? Is it gen--“

“It’s genetic, yes.” Alison answered before she could finish. “My mother was also,” she struggled around the word before coughing it out, “barren.”

Cosima and Beth shared a look. Beth’s mouth opened to respond but Cosima rested a hand on her chest and turned to place herself between the two coiled women. Her voice was soft, understanding, “Us too.” Alison blinked at this, but didn’t interject so Cosima continued, “Beth and I are both unable to conceive-- genetic. Our mothers sought out in vitro fertilization. Do you know if--“

The frantic flutter of Alison’s eyelashes was all the confirmation Beth needed, the detective couldn’t stand to be pushed out of this woman’s house again. She rushed to get to the point, “Alison, we need a blood sample.”

Alison was opening her mouth in protest, but Cosima held up a hand to stop her, “Please, listen. I spent yesterday sequencing my genome and comparing it to Beth’s. We’re twins Alison.”

“Twins? And you think I’m, what, some missing sister?” Alison had a comforting hand against the fragile skin behind her ear.

“Not exactly.” Beth spoke. “You were born April 4th, 1984?” At Alison’s prickle, Beth rolled her eyes, “I’m a cop, Alison, I found your house, your birthday wasn’t a stretch.”

“April 4th,” Cosima explained, “Beth was born on April 1st.” At Alison’s less than impressed look, the scientist continued, “I was born on March 9th…in San Francisco.”

Alison had her jaw stretched open, head tilted to the side as if trying to release some tension. Her hands, unsure of what to do, jumped from her face to her hips, settling with her arms crossed over her chest protectively. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying we all look identical, we were all conceived in vitro, and born spaced apart, thousands of miles apart, to different parents. Katja is from Berlin, for Christ's sake.”

“Katja?” Alison’s voice was up an octave now, it grated against Beth’s spine.

“I told you we weren’t alone in this,” Beth responded, “I told you there were others. Katja is in Germany.”

“Are there more?”

Cosima and Beth shared a look and before Beth could stop her Cosima interjected, “There were. They’ve been-- they’ve been murdered.”

Alison nearly doubled over, the wind clearly knocked out of her at Cosima’s words. The student placed a gentle hand on the woman’s shoulder. “Look, I know this is a lot, it’s scary, we’re all scared, but I’ve got answers…I think. I just…”

“You need to test my blood? See if I’m like you?” She spat out the last sentence like it was a curse.

The dreaded woman nodded calmly, full of patience and grace in the places Beth lacked them. Alison straightened up, shrugging off Cosima’s hand. “Okay.” Her voice was firm and sure again, as if her momentary lapse had never happened. “As long as you can protect my family,” this was directed at Beth, it was harsh, and Alison’s eyes were full of a fire Beth hadn’t seen before. The detective nodded. “And I don’t want my children finding out about this…this mess.”

“Total anonymity,” Cosima’s hands were out in front of her, promising. “I have supplies in the car, do you want to do this now?”

***

With Cosima gone there was an emptiness to the room, it seemed darker somehow, like the scientist had brought in some hopeful light. Beth and Alison stood about a yard apart--Alison with her arms crossed and Beth with a hip cocked, hands dug deep in the pockets of her dark-wash jeans. They stood in silence.

“I-I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” It was rushed, but genuine.

Beth nodded, “No need, we’re working it out now.”

“Is someone really killing…us?” Alison choked around the last word.

Beth’s eyes left hers, looking out the front window to see Cosima struggling to pull a metal briefcase from the trunk of her car. “Yes.” It was a quiet, pained whisper. “I think so.”

Beth met Alison’s gaze again, the normally composed woman looked shaken. Beth slowly closed the distance between them, body tense for retaliation, but she met none. She kept a few inches of space between them, “Alison,” the other woman looked up to meet Beth’s twin eyes, “I promise you, I won’t let anyone hurt you.” She gestured to the pictures on the walls “Or your kids. I swear”

With a shaky breath and a steeling nod Alison took a step back, her arms defensively crossing in front of her again, just in time for Cosima to haul in the case.

The process was identical to the one Beth had undergone just a day before, she sat at Alison’s side while Cosima inserted the needle in her vein. “How long is this going to take?” Alison asked.

“The process only takes about four hours, but my lab is all the way in Minnesota, so…a day or two, maybe.”

Alison looked at Beth pointedly, at her glare the detective cocked her head confused. “You’re sending her all the way to Minnesota with this, aren’t you a police officer? Don’t they have science equipment at your work?” She waggled a stiff hand back and forth, bending at the wrist, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Beth and Cosima both blinked, shocked.

“I…didn’t think of that,” Beth shifted uncomfortable on her bar stool. “I guess I could sneak you in. What kind of equipment do you need?”

“Ah,” Cosima’s eyes rolled around in thought, “I’d need a vortex mixer, a centrifuge, several reagents and--“

Beth held her hands up, “I have no idea what any of that stuff is, do you think they’ll have it in a crime lab?”

Cosima’s face lit up, her smile wide and excited, like a child being told they had the run of an amusement park, or a puppy whose owner had just grabbed the leash, “Oh yeah.”

Beth nodded solemnly, “Well, we need to wait until night to go, there’ll still be techs, but it’ll be quieter.”

“Do you mind if I crash for a while? The drive took a lot out of me,” Cosima stretched, her chest opening with the pull of it.

Beth thought back to Paul, bringing her genetic identical home might not be a good idea after the way she’d left, but before she could protest Alison stepped in, “My kids will be home in a few hours, but I can keep them out of the basement. There’s…a couch.”

Beth’s brows rose in surprise and she ghosted a smile in Alison’s direction. The woman caught it and smiled back, it was a small and fragile thing, but it was the best thing Beth had seen all day.

***

Alison was cleaning, though the room was already spotless--it was more like she was reorganizing. Beth was sitting on the desk off to the side of the craft room, watching Alison work. Things had calmed a bit, Alison certainly wasn’t as hostile, though an occasional snark slipped from her lips. The animated woman moved into the basement proper and, after a glance at the couch, tutted her tongue and marched up the stairs. Beth, curious, slid off the desk and out the doorway, peeking over the back of the couch to see Cosima had fallen asleep where she’d landed--shoes and dangly jewelry still on, limbs all tangled knots. There was a youthful innocence about her, like the possibility that they were clones wasn’t completely tearing her apart at the seams. Beth felt like she and Alison were barely holding themselves together, but there was Cosima, pure, sleeping without a care.

Alison was suddenly behind her, Beth jumped at the feel of a dainty hand finding the small of her back. She nearly spoke but caught a glimpse of Alison who shushed her. She settled back, both feet on the ground, and watched as Alison fluffed out a blanket and draped it gently over Cosima’s sleeping form. Beth couldn’t help but feel a smile tug at the corners of her lips when Alison knelt by Cosima’s head, gently pulling the crooked glasses from their double’s face. Alison’s eyes lingered, perhaps too long on Cosima’s peaceful features. With a trembling fingertip she reached out and smoothed the wild baby hairs that spilled out of the tight braids along Cosima’s hairline. She swallowed and a hard look crossed her face again as she stood and turned to Beth. “Does she have any theories?” She asked quietly, her voice just barely above a whisper.

Beth nodded and jerked her head back to the craft room. Alison passed her on the way and Beth turned behind her, falling in step. Alison shut the door behind them and suddenly they were small and alone in the big empty space. “She thinks we may be…” Beth sighed, “clones. She thinks we might be clones.”

Aside from a few surprised blinks, Alison took the revelation surprisingly well. “I suppose with the information we currently have, that would be a plausible explanation.”

Beth closed the space between them, surprised at Alison’s sturdy stance, they were miles away from fighting to open the front door just hours before. She reached out with a cool finger to touch the bruising skin around the draw site in the crook of Alison’s elbow, “We’ll know more when the results are in.”

“Would you like a drink?” Alison asked without pulling away from Beth’s finger.

Beth nodded and leaned back against a desk, crossing her arms. Alison moved to a shelf full of tubs, opening one labeled ‘Buttons’, and coming to settle next to Beth, mimicking her posture against the furniture. The outsides of their shoes and arms were touching. After a gulp from an airplane-sized bottle of vodka, Alison passed the container to Beth. Maybe Alison Hendrix wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought.


	7. Clone Phones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone is enjoying Actual-National-Holiday Orphan Black Friday! I also hope you're enjoying this story. Tis the season to love Orphan Black. Praise be to Soccercop. Amen.

Alison tiptoed down the basement stairs, her eyes flicking over her shoulder. “The kids are asleep,” she whispered to Beth, “Donnie is out having drinks, he won’t be back until the middle of the night.”

Beth nodded. “Do you think Cosima can stay here tonight? I need to go home or Paul will think something is up. I haven’t told him I’m back in town yet…” She paused, “I’d just like to get it over with, I don’t think bringing her with me is going to help smooth things over.”

“Of course,” Alison stopped a foot away from Beth’s unmoving body and eyed Cosima’s still sleeping form. The woman hadn’t so much as mumbled in hours. “The drive took a lot out of her.”

Beth sighed, running a hand down her own face. “I don’t think it was the drive, this is a lot to deal with.” She locked eyes with Alison meaningfully and the other woman picked up on her intention.

“I’m okay, Beth, really.” She rested a hand on the detective’s upper arm. “Are you--“

Before she could finish Beth nodded, her voice stern, “I’m good.”

Alison read the truth in the silence that grew between them. She kept her hand in place, eyes taking in the way her pale skin contrasted against Beth’s black sweater. “Beth, if you ever want to talk ab--“

“I don’t.” Beth interrupted her again, but didn’t pull away. At Alison’s sigh, Beth explained, “I just don’t have time to think about the implications of all of this. If Katja is right, that means someone is coming. Someone who wants to put a bullet between your eyes, Alison.” She turned to fully face the other woman, watching Alison’s eyelids flutter with the weight of Beth’s words. “Do you understand? I don’t have time to process, I need to be…I need to be ready for anything. I need to be between you and that bullet.” After a defeated breath she continued, “between Cosima and that bullet.”

“Humph, bullet?” Cosima was stirring, mumbling, in her makeshift bed. The two women broke eye contact to look over at their twin, rousing from sleep. Beth wasn’t sure why, but a smile was spreading across Alison’s face and suddenly her eyes were on Beth’s again, the skin around her eyes crinkling, her canines baring in a smile not dissimilar from Cosima’s. Her hand found it’s place over Beth’s heart, and the detective stopped breathing in that moment.

“Elizabeth,” Alison kept her voice low so as not to disturb Cosima’s slow return to consciousness. “I’m glad you’re here.“

Beth shook her head, though Alison was obviously sincere, her voice was also laced with the gentle slur of vodka, “Don’t worry about it.” Alison didn’t seem to have any intention of moving her hand, and Beth was beginning to feel the familiar flow of her own inner-workings, her blood, her breath, her heartbeat. She stepped back, putting distance between them, Alison’s hand dropping unceremoniously into the negative space where Beth’s body had been. Beth couldn’t recognize the expression on Alison’s face, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to anyway. She strode to the couch, reaching down to Cosima’s shoulder and jostling her gently. “Cosima. It’s late, we should head to the lab.”

“Science time?” She mumbled.

Alison was at Beth’s side again, leaning over Cosima. “Yes, science time,” came a motherly reply.

This put a groggy smile on the student’s face.

***

Cosima had brought a white lab coat from home and carried the metal briefcase containing the samples they’d collected so far. The few people that were around didn’t give the two of them a second glance as they made a bee-line for the elevators.

They passed A lab, B lab, and C ‘PARTY!’ lab, settling on D lab, the last lab on the floor, it was completely dark and silent but for the ever-present hum of technology. Beth hung back in the doorway, but Cosima slid around her, apparently completely at ease. She set her metal case down on an empty table and began opening it. “Would you mind hitting the switch, Stud?”

Beth glanced to her left, reaching into the room and flipping the lights. They were harsh and sudden, and the immediacy of it caused Beth to flinch visibly. It wasn’t unnoticed by Cosima who looked over the tops of her glasses at the detective. “Y’alright, Beth?”

“Yeah,” Beth glanced back down the hallway towards the other labs, where some techs were still working.

Cosima caught the look of worry on Beth’s face, “Oh don’t worry about us getting caught.” The scientist flashed a cocky grin, “I’m kind of a pro at talking my way out of trouble. Plus, I look like I belong here.” She gave a spin, her lab coat spiraling around her like a ball gown. Beth didn’t disagree so she moved fully into the lab and shut the heavy metal door behind her.

“Do you have everything you need?” Beth asked, looking over the myriad of nameless equipment.

Cosima hummed, spinning again to take in the machines mentally ticking them off one by one. “Oh yeah, this’ll be fine.” She opened the case and slid her laptop from inside, opening it and plugging one end of the charger into it, tossing the other to Beth. The detective caught it and knelt to an outlet on the floor, plugging the charger into it.

“So, we…sequence Alison’s DNA,” Beth paused for confirmation and at Cosima’s nod she continued, “what exactly are we expecting to find?”

Cosima straightened her glasses and pulled a Vacutainer marked ‘Alison 05-12-12 :)’ from the case, she turned to a large machine and began to work. “Do you want an honest answer?” She glanced over her shoulder at Beth whose silence was more than enough conformation for the student, “If her DNA isn’t identical to ours, I’ll be very surprised.”

“And she was in vitro, too.”

Cosima finished what she was doing and put her hands flat against the table, giving Beth her full attention. “Beth, we’re clones.” She gestured to the machine whirring next to her, “these tests, they’re just more evidence. I don’t need any more convincing. Seeing her? The three of us in once space…there isn’t a doubt in my mind.”

***

Beth wandered into the bullpen, if she was going to be stuck here for four hours she might as well get some work done. Unfortunately, Art was several coffees down, working late hours again.

Her hand was gentle, but insistent on his shoulder. “You are seriously fucked up right now, Dipshit. I can’t keep covering for you like this.” She repeated words he often said to her and he laughed at the joke. She deepened her voice, “Do you want to be a fucking cop or not?”

The joke had clearly run it’s course, because Art turned to face her and looked pointedly at her messy desk. “I don’t know, Beth, do you?”

She wandered over to her workspace, there were at least seven new missed-call messages from the precinct’s contracted psychologist scattered across her desk. “Art, can you just update me on the Ramsay thing, please?” She sat heavily in her chair and turned to face him.

He rolled his chair until it came to a stop in front of her. “Not until you make an appointment with Bowers.” At her eye roll his face tightened, “Beth, I’m not fucking around, you’re slipping hard and fast, some days you roll in here and I don’t even recognize you.”

She sighed and spun to face her desk, picking up the phone and grabbing one of the many discarded ‘missed call’ notes, banging the number in, eyeing Art throughout. He leaned back, crossing his arms across his chest and waiting. “Hi, I’d like to make an appointment to see Dr. Bowers.” Beth tried to make her voice sound as pleasant as possible for the after-hours recording. “My name is Elizabeth Childs, I’m a detective with the TPD, if you could call my personal cell number to set up an appointment that’d be great.” She gave a big fake smile, “It seems every time someone from your office calls I’m out on a case! Unfortunate miscommunications! I can’t wait to hear from you!” She made a fake vomiting sound as she slammed the phone receiver into the cradle before she turned back to Art, mimicking his posture with an eyebrow cocked in question.

“Happy?” She said after a few moments of silence, her tone was as bitter as she could make it, pushing it through the exhausted defeat.

He didn’t look happy, but he leaned forward anyway, elbows on his knees. “Someone finally came forward, said they saw a tall Asian woman barking out orders to a group of five guys just before the break in.”

Beth’s brows came together, “I guess that’s something to start with.”

“It’s more than something,” he pushed his chair back towards his desk, gliding across the tile floor. He grabbed a blue folder off the top of a stack that was teetering over in his usually tidy workspace. He slid back and handed it over.

Beth opened it and came face to face with the mug shot of a tall, middle-aged woman. “Xan Yip,” she read out loud, “racketeering.”

“She’s wanted down south, more than one American governmental agency is looking for her.”

“A professional,” Beth parroted their conversation at the crime scene. “This could be big.”

“Not just ‘could be’, it is. Yip has been spotted a few times around Ontario. She’s close.” He tapped her picture, paperclip to the top of a page, “she’s the one Beth, this is it.”

“Mafia jewel heists?”

“It looks that way.”

***

Several hours were spent pouring over information on Yip and her Canadian connections before Beth realized Cosima was still in the basement. She grabbed two coffees, “one for the road” she told Art, and made her way to the elevator.

When she arrived, coffee in hand, Cosima was hunched over her laptop, clicking away at the keyboard. Pipette tips and open reagent containers lined the lab bench, causing Beth to raise an eyebrow. 

“Are you usually this messy?” She asked, throwing a finger towards a used nitrile glove that was thrown to the ground next to a trash bin. 

“Don’t worry, it will be back to unfeeling and sterile before we leave,” Cosima remarked, looking up from behind her glasses, “Oh, coffee!” She gleefully reached towards the cup in Beth’s hand. 

“Progress?” Beth asked as she turned over the coffee in question. 

“It’s done.” The dreadlocked twin leaned back. “Come, take a look.”

Beth slid around the table, kneeling next to Cosima’s chair, one arm slung over the back of it. The screen was full of thin lines in four different colors, a pattern of A’s, T’s, G’s, and C’s that would only be legible to someone who understood what they were seeing. “What am I looking at here?” 

“Nothing.” Cosima said momentarily before sitting up straighter and waving her hands in front of her face, “I mean…everything.” At Beth’s confused look Cosima hunched back over her keyboard and pushed ‘print’.

Beth stood and walked to the printer. If she was hoping for it to look more legible on the physical page she was disappointed--it looked just as foreign on paper as it did on the screen. She walked it over to the desk where Cosima had two similar papers already sitting side by side. She placed the third page below to the first two. She couldn’t distinguish between them, but chocked it up to her lack of knowledge. “They all look the same to me, but I don’t know what I’m looking for.”

“It’s not because you’re stupid.” Cosima said matter-of-factly, the implication wasn’t lost on Beth. “They all look the same because they are all the same.” Cosima grabbed a felt-tip off the table and scribbled ‘Cosima’ at the bottom of the first sheet, ‘Beth’ at the bottom of the second, and Beth’s chest tightened as she finished scribbling ‘Alison’ at the bottom of the third. “We’re clones. I’m sure of it. One hundred percent. This is…” she trailed off, looking at Beth. She didn’t need to finish, Beth had heard enough.

“Let’s go.” The detective said, grabbing her coat off the back of the chair she’d slung it over.

“Where are we going?”

“You’re going back to Alison’s after you get this mess cleaned up. I’m going…home.” Cosima didn’t need excellent deductive skills to tell that Beth was dreading whatever was waiting for her back home.

***

Beth rapped lightly at the door to Alison’s basement and it opened expectantly. Alison was standing, stiff as ever on the other side, the glass of wine she clutched was the only indication she’d moved from the spot since they’d left. She stepped aside without question and let the two women into her home. Cosima set her case down on the couch and turned to watch Alison and Beth who had their eyes locked. The tension was palpable, Alison was awaiting answers she knew the other women had.

“Alison,” Cosima tried to speak quietly and calmly, “the test results…”

“We’re clones, aren’t we?” Alison’s voice was startling, causing Cosima’s lips to twist into a frown, but Beth’s face remained emotionless.

“You knew?” Cosima asked as the housewife turned to look at her.

“I…put the pieces together. Please, take a seat, both of you. I did a bit of work myself tonight.”

Cosima let out a sigh and dropped heavily down on the couch. Beth moved nearer to Cosima, sitting with one hip against the back of the couch, the other foot firmly on the ground, choosing instead to watch Alison shuffle into the craft room. She returned moments later with hands full of cell phones. “I…thought these would be a better means of communication.” She handed one to each of them and had two left over in her hand. “The German?” She shoved the spare toward Beth. A small smile twitched at the corners of Beth’s mouth and she nodded, surprised by Alison’s thoughtfulness. “They’re untraceable, I…know a guy. I’ve programed each of the numbers in.” She was pushing her own deep down in the pocket of her robe.

Cosima was fingering the rubbery pink case wrapped around the phone, “Clone phones, this is genius, Alison.”

“Yes, well I’d like to think I’m not totally useless.” The detective could sense the insecurity in the other woman’s voice.

Beth glanced back to Cosima who was fiddling with the new phone, and she turned her gaze to Alison who looked…helpless and unsure. She closed the space between them and placed her hands on Alison’s elbows, “You did good, Ali.” it came out softer than she’d expected, she surprised herself at the gentleness of her grip on the other woman.

Alison looked just as surprised, her soft brown eyes looking into Beth’s, thankful for the assurance. “We’re going to be okay,” Beth whispered so Cosima couldn’t hear, “I swear to you Alison.”

And suddenly Alison’s head fell forward into Beth’s chest and Beth swore she could feel a shudder move through the other woman, a sniffle, like she was holding back tears. She wrapped her arms around Alison’s shoulders and held her tightly while she composed herself.

***

Dread, Beth identified the feeling as she fit her key into the front door. She turned the knob, expecting Paul’s angry face and she just wasn’t sure if she could take it. She loved him, she did, with all of her heart, but wedging its way into her soul were pieces of these other women: Katja and Cosima and Alison, Danielle, and the clones she’d never know. They were filling her up to bursting, she didn’t have room for herself anymore. The house was silent except for the click of the door behind her. She slid her car keys into the box by the door and shrugged out of her jacket.

“Paul?” Her voice echoed through the house. After a quiet search she found him, face down on their bed, the comforter slung low over his hips, the expanse of his bare back and splayed arms taking up so much room. So much room on their bed and so much room in her chest. She could feel hot tears welling behind her eyes, she bit her lip hard, ushering the tears away with the sting of it. She dropped her baggage at the door to their bedroom and moved to his side, meeting his skin first with her hands, sliding her palms over his back and down his arms until her upper body was gentle on top of him, her cheek against his warm shoulder. He let out a quiet moan, shifting, opening one eye and craning his neck to see her.

“Beth?” His voice cracked and the sound of it broke Beth’s heart. She had been so harsh to him before she’d left, and the feel of Alison trembling in her arms had broken some dam inside of her she’d been unaware of.

“I’m sorry, Paul.” She lifted her weight off of him so he could turn under her and in an instant she was in his arms, powerful and tight. He kissed her forehead where the troublesome baby hairs that had plagued her for her entire life were twisted and wild.

“It’s okay, I’m sorry too.” Without giving her time to kick off her shoes he pulled her fully on top of him, feet off the floor. “Is Genny okay?”

Beth felt a pang at the lie, she was thankful that Paul couldn’t see her face in the blackness of their bedroom. “Yeah, she’ll make it. Leaving Tom was hard.”

“Leaving always is.” There was a deeper meaning to his words that couldn’t have been more clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During the rewatch I realized Beth found Cos and Ali through facial-recognition software and now I feel like the worst fan ever. Sorry for the giant inconsistency, I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive this indiscretion. If you need me I'll be seeking repentance from my Helena shrine for the rest of my days.


	8. Clone Club

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me preface this by saying that I cannot believably write the gradual passage of time, it's not something I have in my skill set. So, I've spent the last week stressing out about how people would take this next chapter which includes a five month time jump. I poured over the final 12 chapters to see if there was some way I could rework the story to avoid the hiccup, but 6k more words of exposition is just going to get us here- to this point. Time jumps feel like cop-outs because they often are, but just trust me that we'll be getting to the good stuff much quicker this way. If you are interested in knowing (with more detail) what happened in the "Missing Months", let me know down in the comments and I'll see about starting a companion piece of vignettes to fill in any scenes you'd like to see.

Life was uneventful as the seasons passed until Beth woke up one fall morning tangled in Paul’s heavy limbs several minutes before the alarm went off. She edged out from underneath him and blinked slowly as her toes hit the cool floor, the morning air was clear and refreshing. She was sober. At Alison’s insistence she’d eased back on the pills, the clone warned that Beth couldn’t protect them if she couldn’t see straight. It had made sense, and though she still took more than she should on occasion, Beth managed to keep those times a secret and she had lived a less hazy life since.

The fingerprint results of one more clone had come back, Sarah Manning. Her last known address was in Toronto, but Beth had been unable to track her down. Despite putting out feelers, Beth had given up searching- nearly forgetting about the request she’d put out to dig into the woman’s records as well as the contacts she’d made in city transportation services.

She walked into the kitchen and reached into the cabinet to find a glass, bringing it to the tap, she filled it with water. After a long swallow she pulled her hair-tie off her wrist and moved to make a ponytail out of her long brown strands, but the band slipped from her fingers and when she bent to find it a crumpled up piece of paper caught her eye— nestled deeply in the crease between the fridge and counter, as if it’d been flung in anger, lost and forgotten. She reached for it. Her heart stopped as she smoothed it under her shaking fingers. It was Genny Beuchannan’s address and what looked like GPS coordinates. It was frighteningly difficult to take a breath, she pushed the heel of her palm against her sternum to try and will her lungs to work. She flashed back to the day she’d left to meet Cosima for the first time. She remembered the shaky ground she and Paul were standing on in those days. Things were better now, she was learning to manage her time and the meds were no longer a giant brick wall he was beating against. His chest was her pillow during withdrawals and his hands steadied her in the nights while Alison’s kept her upright during the days.

Had he called Genny that week? What about the coordinates? Was he tracking her?

She turned on her heel, marched into the bathroom, and pried open the medicine cabinet with anxious, clawing fingers. Swallowing, two, four, five pills and craning her head down to the tap to swallow gulp after gulp of water, washing down the ones that had stuck, bitter, on the back of her tongue. She could hear the bed creaking under Paul’s weight as he shut off the blaring alarm.

A jog. Just a jog, around the block, she’d be fine. She would realize there was a perfectly normal explanation for the GPS coordinates for Genny fucking Beuchannan’s fucking house to be on a fucking piece of paper in Paul’s fucking handwriting! She stopped when she caught sight of herself in the mirror, all fire eyes and bared canines. She wasn’t Beth. Who was Beth, anyway? A clone? Just another variation? She swallowed down the rage and anxiety and moved to bedroom, finding a pair of track pants and a blue hoody, dipping down to find her Nikes in the mess of shoes at the bottom of their closet.

She could hear Paul mulling around the kitchen, neither of them was making any effort to be quiet. “Ugh, babe?” She could hear him messing with the coffee maker again. The man was thirty-two years old and couldn’t handle a simple coffee machine. She sat heavily on the edge of the mattress and began tying her shoes until they were uncomfortably tight.

She stood and slid halfway in the bathroom, just far enough to wrap her fingers around her pill bottle, slipping it into her right hoody pocket-- just like she used to. After another glance at the monster in the mirror she made her way into the kitchen, “Do you think you could…?” He trailed off, gesturing towards the pot.

“You need to fill the back with water, every single day, Paul. It doesn’t run on magic water. I’m going out for a run.”

He clearly caught the anger in her voice and she clearly caught the hidden piece of paper dwarfed in his wide fist. He was acting like he hadn’t seen it, like she hadn’t seen it, like it didn’t exist. “Where are you running, want a partner?”

She ran, alone, to the suburbs.

***

“Welcome to Clone Club!” Cosima’s voice was full joy, it was jarring even after the loud crash of Beth’s morning. The older clone seemed unaware of Beth’s trek or the slight glaze of her eyes, just happy to see her friend after a few weeks apart.

Alison shot the spunky scientist a harsh look. “We’ve talked about using the ‘C’ word.” Brown eyes immediately assessed Beth’s condition, and Alison had her fingers tangled in the front of Beth’s hoody as she pulled the detective into the craft room.

“Would you prefer ‘cunt’?” Cosima’s brows and tongue waggled suggestively as she hung backwards over the basement couch to still be in view of the two moving through the door frame.

Beth held back a chuckle and shot a wink Cosima’s way, resting a hand on Alison’s back before the housewife could shut the door, surprised to feel Alison tense under her touch. She brushed it off, “What’s on the agenda today?” Beth asked, trying to work her drug-loosened mouth around the words.

Alison shut the door and turned to face Beth fully, her hands occupied tightening her ponytail, “Cosima is leaving tonight, though Donnie took the kids camping this weekend, she really could stay.”

“The bus ticket is already purchased,” Cosima yelled from the main room of the basement like it was something she’d been saying repeatedly all morning. “I need to get back to school. I’m getting a B-minus in one of my classes, and I’m blaming you fuckers.” Her voice was muffled through the closed door, but moving closer.

Could they tell she’d slipped? Beth wondered. Before she could speak, Cosima was turning the door knob and poking her head into the room. “I am in serious need of a shower though, for real.”

Alison pointed in the general direction of the stairs, “Go ahead, you know where everything is, do be discreet.”

“Yeah, Mom, no problem.” Cosima shut the door and Beth could hear her gathering some spare clothes from her bag before tromping heavily up the stairs.

“Do not even think about smoking pot in my bathroom this time, Cosima…I mean it!” Alison screeched after the scientist but she got no response. She huffed quietly, rubbing the front of her neck.

With Cosima out of earshot Beth turned to Alison, “Did she have any revelations? Who created us, what they want with us?” Alison moved to a closet at the back of the room, pulled out a rag, and returned— running it along Beth’s neck, wiping away the glean of sweat with a practiced motion. Beth and Alison had spent long days together and the fierce woman grew accustomed to brushing sweat from Beth’s shaking muscles in the weeks after she stopped abusing her meds. Alison shook her head in answer to the detective’s question and with deft hands she undid Beth’s ponytail, running her fingers through it to set her locks back in place around her shoulders.

“Great,” Beth muttered, “I don’t know what I was expecting. I mean the clone thing is a big enough deal. I guess I always think one day she’ll use that whacky brain of hers to ‘eureka’ us to the bad guy’s front door.” She looked down, noticing that Alison had begun tugging gently at the zipper of her hoody. “I guess that’s too much to ask of her,” Beth just watched, noticing the way her leg muscles, burning from the miles trembled to keep her upright. 

“Well, I’ve managed to keep her from smoking any of her magic brain juice since she’s been here, so she may not be at top form.”

Beth grinned and lifted Alison’s chin with the side of her finger to find the smaller woman was also smiling widely, “Did you just call weed ‘magical brain juice’?” Alison’s hands were against her chest now, under her hoody, sliding it off her shoulders and down her arms.

“Yes,” Alison was…blushing?

“Okay, just making sure.” Beth leaned heavily into the craft desk, her legs threatening to give way, she dropped her head back and let her muscles ooze for a moment, eyes slid closed. With the jacket off she could feel steam pulsing off of her body with each beat of her heart. “And don’t act so innocent, I know about your college antics.”

Alison pressed her eyes closed tightly and shook her head, Beth was glad Alison had occasionally spilled her guts to Cosima on their nights drunk in the basement- and thankful that Cosima was awful at keeping secrets. Though Beth had only been joking, Alison wasn’t smiling anymore but the detective didn’t need to look at her to know, she could feel it in her bones. “Are you okay, Elizabeth?” Beth opened her eyes and took in Alison’s expression, but the small woman was far too close for her lungs to function properly, folding the hoody and setting it on the desk beside them. “Don’t try to tell me some lie, I can tell you ran all the way from the city.” Alison’s small hands gripped Beth’s wrist, turning it so the run-tracker watch that was strapped to her pulse point was in plain view. She made an affirming noise at the read-out.

“I think better when I move, just blowing off steam, you know how it is.” She tried to put on a cocky grin but the air was heavy and silent. Beth knew Alison could see right through her. She shifted uncomfortably as if to sit at a stool, but Alison’s hand moved like a flash, her grip tight around Beth’s forearm.

“Stop,” Beth avoided eye contact, worried the suddenly perceptive Alison would know every secret she’d ever kept with one look. “Beth,” she didn’t speak, she breathed the name. “I know,” Alison flipped the hoody open a bit to fish her pills out of the pocket “about these.”

Beth’s hackles were up, and Alison thrust out a hand to stop her, it landed firmly on her sternum, her fingertips warm where they met the over-heated skin just above Beth’s tank top. “After everything, Beth? After every day I spent taking care of you out on that couch? You’re high as a kite, did you think I wouldn’t notice?” Her grip loosened but Beth didn’t pull away, suddenly ashamed. “You never smile this much.” Alison’s voice was suddenly sad as her hands moved inward across Beth’s shoulders, her thumbs brushing against Beth’s throat. She sighed quietly, it was a delicate sound, like she was swearing to Beth that she’d keep all of her secrets, “The pressure you’re under is immense,” they locked eyes, “I know it’s frustrating that we’re not getting anywhere with our investigation. And I can see how anxious you are about work, about not catching this woman.” Beth didn’t flinch when Alison’s fingertips trailed over jaw, causing her eyelids to flutter closed. “Everyone is breathing down your neck. Katja is still in danger. There is a killer on the loose in Europe and a criminal mastermind running willy nilly around Ontario. But don’t do this.” She shook the bottle, frustration in her movements. “I am here for you. C-Clone Club, and all that. These can’t be an option anymore.”

***

Alison hadn’t been wrong, despite the change of the seasons, the clones had barely a scrap more information than they’d had in May. “So, there are plenty of corporations working on trying to patent synthetic biology, but none of them are even close.” Cosima’s voice carried down the stairs before her bare foot hit the basement floor.

“Hush!” Alison’s hiss stopped Cosima in her tracks. Beth was asleep, actually asleep--Cosima moved closer to inspect. Her Nikes were kicked over the frame of the couch she’d rested her eyes on many times before and she was flat on her back, her head resting in Alison’s lap. Alison had one hand tangled in the hair at the base of Beth’s neck, a fingertip gently tracing the tendons of Beth’s throat. Beth had a hand draped over her midsection and the other was thrown up on the back of the couch. Cosima raised her wide eyes to meet Alison’s.

“Is she seriously sleeping? It’s a miracle.” She said. “You’re the cop whisperer.” She sat on the arm of the chair and the two of them just watched the easy rise and fall of Beth’s chest, it was a slow, steady cadence. “I’ve never seen her look so peaceful.” Cosima muttered sadly.

Alison said nothing, the fingers of her free hand undoing Beth’s running watch and dropping it to the floor by the couch, the pad of her thumb gently rubbing the fragile skin it usually chafed.

Suddenly a loud ringtone broke the peace and Beth jumped, nearly knocking heads with Alison in the process. Cosima frowned, noticing the way the tension visibly moved back through Beth’s body, starting in her core and flying out through her arms to her fingertips. It was like every muscle in her body was ready for action--fight or flight. Beth leaned up off of Alison, glancing back at her with an apologetic look, but found only a pained sadness in Alison’s brown eyes. Beth shook the thoughts from her head and picked up her phone. It was an email, she recognized the automated account name and stood, thumbing into the message. It was in response to the request she’d put out for Sarah Manning’s juvenile records, it included an older mug shot and an address she hadn’t checked yet.

“I’ve got to go,” Beth gruffed, sleep still coating her throat.

She left Alison and Cosima staring at each other in the basement.


	9. Innocence and Guilt

She’d caught a bus home, luckily Paul was gone when she’d arrived. She’d taken the world’s fastest shower before getting dressed, eyeing the new mug shot until she had it memorized: Sarah Manning, DOB: March 15th, 1984, born in the United Kingdom. But her criminal record started in Ontario--assault, theft. Sarah Manning looked like trouble, she wore an intense amount of messy eyeliner and had a thin braid done up along the side of her head, making it look partially shaved. She looked like a fucking junkie. The new address was in a better part of town than the last, and Beth was eager to find any clue there that might lead her to the missing clone.

Beth parked her car a few blocks away so as not to draw attention and crept up the rest of the path. She knelt close to the ground, the bushes around the base of the run-down house made for good cover. Peeking into a window she saw an older woman with long, auburn hair, head thrown back in a hearty laugh. Sarah Manning’s foster mother, Siobhan Sadler, Beth assumed. Sarah’s records stated Sadler had adopted the orphan at the tender age of eight before moving to Canada. The woman picked up a young girl and slung her around so the girl had her arms and legs wrapped tightly around her body, hanging off of her back like a curly-haired monkey.

She couldn’t remember any information about a kid. She checked the email again, nothing about a kid. When Beth looked back up into the window, the older woman was carrying the child upstairs, monkey-style. The girl’s eyes were cast down, towards the window, towards Beth. The detective blinked a few times and the girl blinked back and smiled shyly before she was carried around a corner.

It was late, with any luck the child would keep quiet and take a while falling asleep. She slid around the house, keeping to the bushes until she found windows leading into the kitchen. She shone her flashlight through the glass, squinting against the glare. The refrigerator was covered in pictures of the small girl, her child-like art, and a few odds and ends, mementos mostly. There were two older pictures of a small boy with goofy hair and large lips, Beth smiled at his gawky pre-teen frame. Then her eyes settled on the prize: it was a picture of 12-year-old Beth--or not-Beth. Not a picture of the Sarah that Beth came to know in the months following the arrival of her mug-shot, but a picture of her as a child. Despite the knowledge that they were clones, the image of young Sarah Manning felt out of place in this stranger’s home, like it belonged on the fridge of Beth’s family instead; the detective shook the uncomfortable feeling from her bones. This was certainly the house the grifter had grown up in, but the tattered woman was nowhere to be seen.

Beth needed to think, her knees ached with the pressure of it, she could feel the ribs of her back crackling like wings desperate to come unbound. Her gut rolled with nausea from her earlier slip-up and the after-effects left her with a slight tremble in her hands. She thought that feeling the cool October air against her cheeks might help. Beth walked with clipped steps back to the lot where she’d left her car. Fishing her spare gear out of the trunk--replacing boots with trainers and jeans with track pants, one of Paul’s plain white shirts over her bra. She settled her shoulder holster and shield lovingly in the back seat before shutting the door.

She bounced on the balls of her feet and locked the car, slipping the keys in her pocket and heading off in the opposite direction of Sarah Manning’s childhood address.

She tried to keep her mind on the running, but Cosima and Alison filled her thoughts--they were innocent in all of this. It made her angry that they were forced into this fucked up mess, she pressed harder, feeling the burn in her thighs and the sickness in her stomach. It made her even angrier that they were no closer to answers then they’d been the day after they discovered their true nature.

The look Alison had pinned on her earlier…the way her lips moved, sure and with purpose. Her eyes…Alison looked like she could get information out of anyone, but not in a bad way. You know? She thought. Like she wanted to unburden you, like she wanted to fit into your life. Beth shook her head violently enough to throw off her stride so she stopped and put her hands on her knees. That was ridiculous, Alison had enough in her life to deal with--kids and sports and PTA meetings. There wasn’t room for Beth there, broken Beth. Her affections for Alison had grown, crept around her with tendrils like the cold that blows in with the fall. They were being hunted for sport, for fuck’s sake--she shouldn’t be seeking comfort in Alison’s already burdened arms. That’s what Paul was for. Beth spat out the saliva she’d built up from panting. With it she spat Paul’s name. That morning, had it been real? The memory was foggy in the drug-induced haze that had followed. Did she even find a paper? What had it actually said? Was Paul really tracking her?

Beth looked up upon recognizing her surroundings, she’d run in a small circle and was just a block or two from her car. The walk back was tiring, every muscle in Beth’s body burned. Battered and abused by the morning’s run, they were protesting each movement. She had her head down and eyes closed as she cut through a courtyard to get to the parking lot.

“Welcome back to town, Sarah Manning. Nine long months.”

Beth’s eyes shot open, her vision was blurred but quickly came into focus when she noticed a tall woman sitting on a courtyard bench, was that…Xan Yip? Her hand instinctively slid to her ribs, fuck, her gun was with her jacket in her car.

“Don’t worry, we haven’t met. My name is Maggie, Maggie Chen. I’ve been keeping an eye on your daughter for you.” She paused, looking for something in Beth’s face but clearly not finding it. “Actually, I’d like to talk to you about Kira. How much of your…nature are you aware of?”

Sarah’s daughter? Kira? Beth swallowed and stood up straighter.

Maggie Chen’s head cocked, confusion clouding her features, “Sarah?” Before Beth could respond, a wicked grin crossed the older woman’s face. “No, not Sarah. Elizabeth Childs?” She pointed a finger out towards Beth, “Am I right?” She stood from her position and took a few steps toward Beth. The detective hedged to the side, angling herself to move past Maggie and into the parking lot while trying to seem nonplussed. “Toronto PD?”

“Yeah, and who are you?”

“As I said, my name is Maggie Chen.” She took in their surroundings for a moment, “What are you doing all the way out here?”

“Training,” Beth sniffed, not having to fake burning gasping lungs searching for air. “I run marathons. How do you know my name?” She continued on, walking with her back to Maggie Chen, increasing the volume of her voice so the other woman could hear her.

Maggie smiled, “It’s my job.”

“Who is Sarah Manning?” Beth asked as nonchalantly as she could, leaning against her car and untying one of her shoes.

“Oh,” Maggie turned her back, “I’d rather have run into her, it’s true, what with her unusual…circumstance. But honestly, meeting any of you is a pleasure.”

In a flash Beth had the door open, hand on her service pistol. Suddenly the gun was aimed at Maggie Chen’s head. “I suggest you put your hands up and start answering my questions.”

The woman’s hands went up; her face, rather than showing fear, was a mask of fascination. “You’re a clone, Miss Childs.”

“Yeah, I’m a few steps ahead of the class. What are you doing here, why are you after Sarah Manning?” She moved closer, stepping back over the curb into the courtyard. Her gun stayed trained in the center of her new captive’s long face.

Maggie Chen’s mouth twisted in a frown. “The Proletheans have an interest in Sarah. She’s been gone quite a while though. I’ve given her some incentive to return home. It took a lot of behind the scenes work, but if all plays out well, she’ll find herself with a hefty bag of cocaine and an escape plan. In the meantime, waiting for our wayward sheep to return home I’ve had time to do some digging. What a clone goldmine Toronto is, don’t you think?!”

Blood was hot in Beth’s mouth, though she wasn’t sure where from, maybe she’d bitten her lip or tongue. “You’re the killer.” Beth pushed closer, feeling anger surge inside her, finally an emotion she understood. She pushed the gun violently against Maggie’s shoulder, causing her to stumble back a few inches. “You’re the one who has been hunting and killing us like we’re animals! Janika Zingler, Aryanna Giordano, and Danielle Fournier! Haven’t found Katja yet?!” She spat at the woman, shoving her shoulder with the muzzle of her gun again hard enough to turn her until she was facing away. Beth kicked her in the back of the knee to bring her to the ground. “Can’t wait to get her hot blood smeared all over your hands, can you?

“Oh, no,” It sounded like Maggie was….almost smiling? “I’m not an assassin. I’m a spotter. I…spot you.”

“You spotted Danielle, the German? You’ve spotted Sarah Manning?” Beth was pushing the muzzle of the gun against the back of Maggie’s head and her voice was brimming with a frantic anger, “How about I put a bullet in your brain right now, spotter?” She was bluffing though, wasn’t she?

“I’m not afraid to die. This is God’s work, I will be welcomed into Heaven for the names I pass to Helena…She has so many new copies to kill…yours was the last name I gave her. I asked her to wait.” She slowly stood with her hands still splayed in surrender, and Beth backed away, gun steady and vengeful. “But if you kill me she’ll hunt you down herself.” She spun and began to walk confidently towards Beth, they were paces apart now, “Zingler, Giordano, Fournier, you--Elizabeth Childs.” Beth flinched, anger rising in her throat. “My sweet Helena, she likes to bury her fingers in them and paint with their blood. Such a good little girl. And if you pull that trigger she’ll paint with your blood next. What about Cosima Niehaus, Tony Sawicki, Sarah Manning?” Beth licked her lips to wet them, this woman knew too much, “Or Katja Obinger?” pull the trigger, Childs, she’s going to kill everyone, “Alis-“ 

She fired twice, with sure aim, and in the span of a second Maggie Chen was gurgling on the ground, blood bubbling from her wide open mouth. She looked…surprised.


	10. Finding Solace

Alison’s jaw was hinged as far open as her front door. “Elizabeth,” her voice was a mixture of shock and concern, she pulled the other woman into the house. “Elizabeth?” Beth couldn’t form words, she just stood in Alison’s foyer, blinking slowly.

“Elizabeth, are you hurt?” Alison’s voice sounded panicked now, her wide eyes taking in the blood dried against Beth’s clothes. Alison flitted around her, trying to inspect her before stopping just in front of her, “Elizabeth, please?” Were those tears?

Beth reached out with both hands to cup Alison’s face, “I’m fine, Ali”, her voice sounded foreign, like a broken record, skipping in and out.

Alison was pulling her then, and Beth didn’t have the strength to fight back. Their foreheads pressed together and they shared thankful gasps of air for a few beats. Eventually the shaking passed and Alison began to move with intent. Beth allowed the small woman to lead her into the upstairs bathroom. “Is this-“

It’s not my blood. Beth thought as she sat down on the edge of the bathtub, looking at her brown, stained hands.

Alison stood still for a moment before she walked to the tub and took the hem of Beth’s shirt. “Up, up” she tutted. The detective lifted her arms and Alison pulled the shirt free, leaving Beth defeated and cold. She knelt on the plush carpet, untying Beth’s running shoes and dropping them one by one, inside the tub, on top of the shirt. Alison lifted her to a standing position before dropping back down to her own knees, unsnapping Beth’s track pants and tugging them down gingerly so as not to catch any damaged skin. Beth found her hand resting easily on the top of Alison’s head, thumb running with the grain leading back to her ponytail like it was muscle memory. Her legs felt like Jell-O, but Alison held her firmly after a dangerous wobble.

Beth was placed directly in front of the mirror and she kept her eyes open and alert to hide from Maggie Chen’s lifeless features. Beth flinched every time her eyes lost focus of her own reflection and drifted to the puddle of blood spreading on the cement. She couldn’t escape the woman’s last words. She was going to hand over the names of all of the other clones to the true killer. Beth ran through her options in her head, what else could she have done? Had she acted too quickly? Alison’s hand rested over Beth’s frantically heaving stomach.

She’d called Art first, panicked and pacing over the bloody ground. He had been calm and sure when he arrived on the scene, checking Maggie’s clothes and moving her cellphone from her left front jacket pocket to her right hand. His eyes said it all when they trained on Beth. He would protect her, but she needed to pull her shit together. Her next call was to the station to report the shooting, she’d lied outright to save her own skin. Telling them she’d been tailing Xan Yip through the area, and that the woman had come up on her from behind, that they’d both been wearing black coats--that she’d shot out of fear for her life before realizing that Maggie wasn’t Yip.

“Beth, Beth.” The detective shook her head into focus, Alison was between her bare knees, soft brown eyes looking up into hers. “I can’t find any injuries.”

“I told you…” Had she? Beth cleared her throat, “The blood isn’t mine.”

“W-What happened?”

Alison looked so scared, her eyes were brimming with tears, “Nothing you need to worry about, Ali.” Beth ran her thumb against Alison’s quivering jaw where a bit of Maggie’s blood, not quite dry on her clothes, had smeared. When a fat tear spilled down Alison’s cheek, she caught it. “A civilian, wrong time…wrong place. I thought she was-“ She swallowed hard, “I thought she was Xan Yip.” Lying by omission was still lying, but there was no point in honesty anymore. Alison wouldn’t have to deal with Helena. Beth knew she would have to bury the assassin, and she’d do it without having to worry the others. She’d tell them when it was over.

Alison wet the corner of a washcloth and busied herself with scrubbing the blood from Beth’s shins, palms, forearms, shoulders, neck. “I…I panicked, ran to her to see if I could save her.” Alison said nothing, just continued to try and wipe away the blood. She was nearly rubbing Beth raw at the spot where her collarbones met. “Alison, stop.” Beth grabbed her hands. “I’m fine.”

Alison’s aggressive cleaning hid a powerful tremble Beth hadn’t noticed until she’d caught her. “I-I was worried.” The small woman’s voice was a fluttered whisper.

“It’s okay. I’m sorry I showed up on your doorstep. I should have gone home and showered off first.”

The word ‘shower’ sparked something in Alison and suddenly she was scooping the clothing from the tub and turning the faucet on, water poured heavily into the bath and Alison’s firm hand was on the back of Beth’s neck, bending her awkwardly over the side. “Dunk.” She said, as if instructing a child on how to wash it’s hair, water was spilling into her nose and eyes and she sputtered against it. When she came back up for air, one hand on either side of the tub and her ribs pressed against the cold side uncomfortably, she felt Alison rubbing cool shampoo through her hair, starting behind her ears and moving up her scalp. “Dunk.” She said again. More drowning, she coughed the excess out of her lungs. Alison’s hands grabbed her own and moved them to her head, Beth took the hint and began rinsing in earnest.

When Beth came up for the last time, Alison was gone. But folded neatly on the toilet seat were a pair of pajamas. She stood, taking the clothes and letting out a sigh. She knew she should go home, but the idea of facing Paul was the last thing she wanted to do. Pants first, she tightened the drawstring. Then the shirt, it scratched her behind the shoulders, and felt tight around her upper arms, she and Alison were more physically different than she’d anticipated. She unbuttoned it and draped it behind her neck.

She dug in the pocket of her blood-covered pants for her pills, swallowing as many as she could in one gulp, hoping to ease the tremor in her hands, maybe they would knock her out hard enough that she wouldn’t dream of Maggie Chen’s all-knowing smile. She slipped them back into the pocket, hoping Alison wouldn’t notice them.

Reaching for the door handle she paused, eyeing herself in the mirror. Maggie Chen’s face glared back at her, mouth open and full of worms, hissing the word: “Helena.” Beth sighed and ran a hand down her face. Fuck.

She opened the door and followed the sounds of Alison moving around. “I was suspended, but it’ll look bad if I don’t show up at the station early tomorrow to go over what happened again.” Beth could barely recognize her own voice. Alison looked up to see her, sans sleep shirt. Beth noticed the woman’s gaze on her sports bra. She grabbed the shirt and held it out for Alison to take. “Your shirt didn’t fit.”

Alison looked just as surprised as she had felt. They were supposed to be clones right? Identical? “It’s okay, I suppose you are a bit more…muscular.” Alison shook the thought clear, and moved towards a dresser, taking the too-small button up as she passed. She dug around for a second in a drawer before pulling out a shirt that clearly belonged to Donnie, “would you like to sleep downstairs? I-“ Alison ran out of words, she had pulled the sheets back on both sides of the bed and looked down at it pensively.

Beth’s haunted eyes shifted from the mattress to Alison, who glanced up to meet her gaze. She seemed suddenly shy under the detectives scrutiny. “Anywhere with pillows will do for me, Alison.” She inspected the bed, one side had a bigger dip, she guessed it was Donnie’s side and moved to sit on it— her legs hanging off, toes skimming the floor. Beth took the shirt from Alison and pulled it over her head, it engulfed her whole body, down to her knees like a tent.

Alison was quiet, and her normally anxious energy settled in the few moments before the lights went out. Beth could hear the other woman moving to the opposite side of the bed, sliding in. There was silence, but it was easy, something Beth only experienced in their peaceful moments alone.

“Are you telling me everything?” Alison’s voice wasn’t harsh or impatient, it was the most normal sounding voice Beth had ever heard, it was conversational and calm and the hand that rested on her lower back was soothing.

“Of course.” Beth pulled her legs up on the bed and laid flat on her back in Donnie’s imprint, pulling the covers up to her chin. Alison was facing her, her breathing calm, “This really was just an accident? She wasn’t…you know…”

“She wasn’t the killer, Alison.”

“If she was, would you-“

“When I find the killer, Alison, I will shoot him between the eyes.” Beth’s eyes never left the ceiling, but she could feel Alison melt into her side. “I’ll cut off his head and parade it around your neighborhood.”

Alison chuckled, her hand moving under Donnie’s nightshirt to lightly slap Beth’s bare ribs under the covers. Beth tried not to think about the jolt she felt when their skin touched. “Well, thank you.” Alison’s voice was muffled against Beth’s shoulder. The detective turned to face Alison, sliding her arms tightly around the small woman’s neck. “Thank you for everything, Beth.” Alison’s arms returned the hug, fitting around her waist, wrapping fully around her. Donnie’s shirt be damned, delicate hands were splayed against Beth’s bare back, fingers weaving in and out of her bra straps.

In the near blackness, Beth could make out the unruly baby hairs, having their way with Alison’s hairline. She ran her nose against them as she breathed in Alison’s scent. “You’re welcome, Ali.” It was choked, the tears were coming and with Alison’s sweet pressure she had no way of stopping them, she could only hope Alison wouldn’t notice.

***

Beth woke alone and when the bedroom door opened Alison found her, propped against the pillows, clicking through her phone with a fierce intent.

“Candy Crush?” Alison asked, almost jokingly, as she moved into the room. The smell of coffee came in with her.

Beth cocked an eyebrow, “I’m afraid not, just work stuff.”

“About the shooting?”

No, clone work, not police work, Beth thought. “Yeah, they want me to make another statement.” Maggie Chen had been good for something--Sarah Manning was a fertile clone and the child at her house was her own, bred-and-birthed blood. Not to mention the name Maggie dropped that Beth had never heard before: Tony Sawicki.

“You’re not ready to go back in Beth…you cried all night.”

Beth tensed and turned away from Alison who was looking at her with the truest brown eyes. She sighed, defeated, “Yeah, well. I killed a woman, I have to deal with the consequences.” Beth dropped the phone into her lap and finally looked up at Alison, ready to face the uncomfortableness of the morning, but there was none. Alison wasn’t tense or cold, if anything she was shy in the morning light streaming through the curtains. “Thank you for letting me crash here tonight.”

Alison smiled with her whole mouth, “No problem.”

“I know I…kind of showed up bloody on your front stoop-“

“Oh! Don’t worry, I put all of your bloody clothes in a plastic bag in case they needed them for evidence.” It was the cutest thing Beth had ever heard.

Alison opened the curtains and blinds, letting more light into the room.

“Alison.” The housewife hummed a response but didn’t turn around, “Ali,” the smaller woman turned to find Beth kneeling on the bed, immediately in front of her, reaching for her hips. “You really saved me last night.”

Alison looked like she wanted to speak, but her eyes were trained on Beth’s lips, it was a look Beth recognized. If she didn’t stop Alison, they would kiss and there would be no turning back. She wasn’t an idiot, the other woman had aimed this particular look at her more than once during the summer, but it was a line she knew they couldn’t cross.

Beth turned her head casually and cleared her throat, pointing at a window-card framed on the wall. “You were in Steel Magnolias?”


	11. The Stand Before the Fall

“I’ve got to go.” Beth slung a light jogging jacket over her shoulders, slipping the pills she’d fished from the Ziploc into her pocket. She was wearing Alison’s tight clothes, long forgetting her favorite baby blue hoody folded neatly on the desk just a floor below her. It had only been a day ago that she’d tried to run as far away from Paul as she could, she ran until she ended up in Alison’s arms. Beth’s world was in shambles. “Just have to talk to Art and the Lieutenant.”

“Do not lie to me, Elizabeth Childs.” Alison was sitting at her kitchen counter clipping coupons. It was nearly 5:30pm, the housewife had managed to talk her into staying and the two had spent a peaceful afternoon watching a House Hunters marathon on television and eating way too many Nanimo bars. It was nice, like they’d never heard of the ‘c’ word or civilian shootings. But an easy afternoon didn’t mean that they weren’t clones, or that Beth hadn’t killed a woman the night before. “People do not go to work dressed like they’re going for a run. They dress like they’re going for a run when they’re planning on running.”

“Okay,” Beth smirked, “I’m planning on running.”

“If you were planning on running,” Alison put down her scissors and turned fully to face Beth, “you wouldn’t have lied.”

Beth pressed her lips into a hard line, clucked her tongue, and just shrugged, finding herself out of excuses, before turning and leaving through the front door.

She trotted down the driveway wearing a pair of Alison’s sneakers, finding Raj’s number in her phone and hitting ‘call’.

“Hey, Detective Childs! I-I heard about the…it’s…uh.” He stumbled through trying to find an appropriate greeting.

“It’s okay, Raj. Look, you know I’m suspended. I’m not supposed to come in, but I’m working a time-sensitive case and I’m worried my CI is going to bail before I can get her in court. Word is out I’m suspended and my contacts are scattering quickly. If I help her get a visit with her kid she’ll be more inclined to work with me, yeah? Can you look up the daughter’s info for me?”

“I-I don’t really feel comfortable going through your files, Det-“

“No, no, nothing like that, you can just look up her name in the database, it’ll pop right up.” She tried to sound playful, but worry was seeping through her voice. She grabbed for her pill bottle but when she opened it she found a folded up piece of paper inside.

“O-Okay, I’m ready, what’s the name?”

“Kira Manning.” Beth growled, her shaking fingers opening up the note, it was scribbled in Alison’s broad, too-neat handwriting: ’Talk.’

“Ah, I got a Kira Manning…mother, Sarah Manning. But maybe not the one you’re looking for. Information says the mother has been on the run for months after some domestic dispute with a boyfriend.”

Beth cocked her head in confusion, but the rage of her empty pill bottle was consuming her faster than she could come up with a plan of response to Raj. “Ah, yeah, sounds like Sarah, she’s a slippery little thing. Why don’t you just shoot me over the father’s number and we’ll call it all sorted?” 

“No number on the father, no name on the father.”

Her hands were shaking violently enough that she thought she might lose the phone to gravity. “Ah, that’s okay. Run another name for me, could you? Tony Sawicki. You might have to dig for info on that one.”

“Yeah, sure, just give me a few. I’ll text you when-“ Raj’s words were lost to Beth, she couldn’t hear anything past the angry ringing in her ears and the loud pounding of her own heartbeat. She couldn’t calm her hands and in retaliation of her body’s failing she threw the cell phone angrily against the driveway, crushing it on impact- pieces scattering.

She stormed up the driveway, reaching for the door handle but found it was already open and framing Alison who was standing firmly in the entryway. Beth was struggling to keep her voice calm and quiet. “Alison, may I have my medication, please?” Alison was quiet, she opened her mouth to speak, but Beth cut her off. “I am so sick of you riding me, Alison. Don’t even act like you have a soap box to stand on. How much fucking wine have you had to drink today?” She regretted the words immediately, but there was no taking them back.

Alison looked like she’d been slapped, tears were welling in her eyes. “Beth, with the shooting…I just don’t want to see you hurt yourself.”

Beth could feel herself cracking, it took everything in her body to not slam a fist through Alison’s perfectly painted drywall, her body was heaving and shaking with the effort. Alison moved closer to her, cautious, as if Beth were an injured animal, gently tugging her into the house. “I know you’re upset about killing that woman, Beth. It’s okay, it’s natural to feel all this guilt, to hate yourself. But it was just a mistake and I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to do this without you, I can’t.”

Beth’s knees were going weak and she could feel hot tears boiling behind her eyelids. She couldn’t remember how she got on the ground, the heavy wooden door shutting against her weight, but Alison was kneeling in front of her, cupping her face.

The kiss was frantic, crashing, and all teeth. If Beth could’ve felt anything she would’ve certainly been in a world of pain, but Alison held her tightly, her grip bruising against the back of Beth’s neck, bare under her pony-tail.

It took a few seconds for Beth to comprehend what was happening, she was kissing Alison, pushing the smaller woman over until she was bent at an awkward angle on the floor, leaning over her and pressing her full weight against her.

Alison winced at the pain and shifted her legs out from underneath her own body, bracketing Beth’s hips with her knees and pulling the broken woman closer to her. Her hands tangled in the jacket she’d given Beth, struggling to find purchase where it was stretched tight against the detective’s shoulders. She pressed her jaw forward, deepening the kiss. When they stopped for air, Alison could feel the tremble in each contraction of Beth’s lungs.

Alison looked like she was about to speak but Beth’s mouth was on her again, hungry and desperate for something, anything that made sense. Her hands were clawing at the housewife’s shirt, until eventually Alison just lifted herself at the middle and pulled the clothing off. She lost the core strength that was holding her upper body off of the floor when Beth’s hot teeth bit deeply into the meat below her collarbone, and with a throaty moan they came crashing down onto the rough tile of the entryway, the back of Alison’s head smacking against it.

In the days to come Beth would barely remember her hand dipping past the button of Alison’s high-waisted jeans, she wouldn’t recall the way she had to twist her wrist in the tightly confined space to get to Alison’s heat, how they’d struggled to find a workable position on the cold tile until they were both on their knees. But with startling clarity she would remember the feeling of Alison arching against her, how hot Alison’s bare stomach felt against the inside of her forearm, the way Alison’s fingertips bruised her shoulders, the sound of Alison gasping in her ear as she curled around Beth’s flexed arm. And she would never forget the flutter against her fingers when, with a final push, she sent Alison over the edge.

They stayed in that awkward position for what seemed like an eternity while Alison pulsed around her. Beth’s knees were welting against the grout-lines in the tile, and her arm was twisted painfully where Alison was wrapped around it. The smaller woman had all of her weight leaning into Beth, her hips tensing with every aftershock. Her fingernails were latched into the flesh of the detective’s elbow even through the jacket, keeping her tight inside, threatening death should she try to move.

The two women had their heads pressed together at the temple, panting into shared space. “Beth,” Alison started.

“Ali,” Beth finished, there was nothing to say.

***

Beth woke in her own bed, in Paul’s bed, alone. Memories of the frantic sex she’d had with Alison flooded back into Beth’s brain and she groaned heavily, covering her eyes with her hands. What had she done? Alison was her clone, her genetic identical. She was giving every last ounce of strength she had to protect Alison from Maggie Chen’s murder-dog, Helena. Fucking her was not part of the plan.

Beth reached over for her phone but winced in pain as the back of her right hand hit the covers. Upon closer inspection, she noticed her knuckles were shredded. Friction against Alison’s zipper, she thought. What had she been thinking?

She wanted to run, she needed to clear her head of Alison’s wanting eyes and her hair and the tender spots behind her ears. She needed to get Alison out of her system or she’d be no good protecting anyone from Helena.

Beth moved quickly into the bathroom, running her mangled knuckles under the cold water from the faucet, a flash of red caught her eye, on the inside of her wrist, smeared lipstick--Alison’s shade. She deflated at the sight of it, tears hot behind her eyes burned all the way down her throat to settle in flame around her heart.

A jog, a quick jog, and then she’d finally get in to the station. She sighed and dug in her closet for a set of running clothes. In the box where she kept her spare shoes she found a stashed bottle of pills and her personal Walther. She palmed a few doses into her mouth and checked that the gun was fully loaded--with one in the chamber. She pulled a special holster from the bottom of the box--it wrapped around her waist and allowed the gun to tuck into the small of her back without getting jostled around. She wouldn’t be caught without a weapon again. Once it was concealed under her shirt she took a deep breath. All that was missing was her running watch. She’d been over a day without it and she couldn’t remember where she’d left it; she wrung her wrist with her fingers, twisting against the bareness of it.

She shook the thoughts of Maggie’s body, of Alison’s body, from her head as she locked the door, bounced on the balls of her feet, and took off. But her trek was a short one, she had only made it to the nearest overpass when a heavy blow cracked against the back of her skull. She dropped to the ground like a lead weight, bleeding and unconscious.


	12. Helena

Beth groaned as she tried to move her head, it was heavy and pounding and her right ear was touching a wetness on the concrete below. She lifted a hand to the spot and her fingertips came away red. She tried to sit up, but her eyes just rolled back in her head. Where was she?

“Copy, copy,”

Beth thought she could hear a quiet humming, but the sound of blood rushing in her ears was drowning everything out. She squinted against, what she believed to be, the brightest lights she’d seen in her entire life. She tilted her hips to gauge the weight of her holster against her back, it felt light, empty.

“Don’t move little sheep.”

A figure moved in front of the light, giving Beth some momentary relief.

“Maybe I will kill you now. It will all be over soon.”

Beth felt panic bloom in her chest and she somehow managed to get her arms under her torso and push herself to her feet. She stayed bent over, her fingertips pressing against the ground for balance. A sudden wave of nausea washed over her and she vomited, bile splashing against her wrists. She fell to her knees and retched again, and once more, and then there was no more acid left. She pushed herself back into a standing position and wiped her hands on her shorts, trying to clean the sick from between her fingers. Beth slid her hand behind her back to her holster and, as she expected, felt empty air. Her double-vision slowly started to focus and she was distinctly sure she could hear laughter. Where was she?!

“Up now, up, Copycop.”

She tried again to shake the fuzz from her brain, suddenly regretting this morning’s dose. She looked around, trying to get a grasp on her surroundings. The overhead lights were very bright--she hadn’t been imagining it, she was in a basement, maybe? There were small windows high up on the walls near the ceiling and the space felt cold and claustrophobic, like it was underground. She turned to check out what was behind her and nearly stumbled backwards over her own feet at the sight of another woman sitting just a few yards behind her on a dirty mattress.

The woman’s smile turned Beth’s veins to ice. “Hello, Beth.” The mattress was the only furnishing in the place, “I was going to take you to my apartment, but this place is nicer, don’t you think?” Was she…Beth blinked…she was another clone. “More room.” The woman threw out her arms and smiled again, biting her bottom lip innocently. “Also, you can scream here.” She had an accent, eastern European, maybe Russian? Beth thought. Her skin was white and looked paper-thin, the space around her eyes was red as if she cried only bloody tears. Her hair was dyed blonde, an unruly mess of tangled curls that looked as wild as her eyes did. Helena. This must be Helena, Maggie Chen’s assassin.

“H-Helena?” Beth choked out. The assassin’s smile widened and the teeth that Beth saw every day in the mirror, the teeth that looked so joyful in Cosima’s mouth, the teeth that made Beth’s heart soar whenever Alison bared them, looked brutal and vicious between Helena’s lips--like the gnashing teeth of an animal baring down on its prey. “You’re Helena--Maggie Chen’s Helena?” The blonde stomped heavy boots on the ground, slapped her thighs, and with the momentum the movement gave her, she stood. Beth slid backwards a few inches to keep maximum distance between them, her eyes found her gun on the bed next to where Helena had been sitting. Her eyes flicked back up to the blonde’s.

Helena was moving towards her now, not straight on--edging to the side, moving to Beth’s left like an animal. “Maggie, yes. She is missing,” She inched slowly closer to Beth, who could feel the mix of terror and adrenaline running through her body. Her head was less cloudy now. Helena didn’t know she had killed Maggie. “You killed her?” Or maybe she did. Beth couldn’t bring herself to form a response. With the killer clone moving closer every second, she couldn’t help but think that each pulse of her heart might be its last.

She thought about how she’d never see Alison again. She wished she could think about Paul or Art, about Cosima or Katja, or Sarah and little Kira Manning, even Angela DeAngelis, but all she could think about was Alison fucking Hendrix. Maybe this was for the best. She squeezed her right fist, spreading open the healing gashes across her knuckles as a physical reminder that she had no part in Alison’s life. Helena was beginning to seem like an easy way out.

The beast was on her now, her breath hot and rank in Beth’s face. She tilted her head, shoulders still canted, still slinking and circling behind her but Beth didn’t turn with her. “You killed her, I can see it inside you.” Suddenly Helena’s hand was on her, making her gasp and flinch, her eyelids fluttered and her mouth dropped open, willing more air into her lungs. Don’t black out Childs, she thought. Helena’s fingers were hot where they sat over her stomach, she could feel them burning through her shirt. “This was your first kill, yes?” Beth nodded, her head jerking outside of her control, her eyes boring straight ahead into the wall on the far side of the room. It felt like Helena was trying to reach inside of her, her fingers pressing roughly into Beth’s gut. Her nails were blunt but her bruising fingertips were more than enough to cause Beth’s jaw to clench in an attempt to stifle a painful moan. Helena was breathing against her cheek, their faces were so close now. How was the assassin going to kill her, would she stab her, shoot her with her own gun? Or did she plan on ripping Beth’s intestines out through her belly button? Beth swallowed and let her eyes flutter closed. Helena released her but Beth could still see the shift of the beast from behind her eyelids, could hear the blonde’s head tilt to the side, could feel her eyes flicking over Beth’s profile.

Helena hummed a moment in thought before seemingly making a decision. “I will not kill you now, it is not time for you yet.” What Beth heard was ‘I’m not done toying with you yet’, but she let out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding anyway. “I still must find the others, you whisper in your sleep, Copycop…” Beth’s eyes flicked to the right to see Helena, still inches from her face, her pale lips twisted in a garish smile. “Maggie was the one to find copies, how to find them now that you killed her? I do not know…” Helena’s hot fingers were on her cheek now, stroking almost tenderly. “You hide them from me, I still find this amusing but I will grow tired soon. You understand, Beth Childs?” Before Beth could respond, Helena continued, “Ali, Ali.” Helena was making a whimpering noise as if imitating Beth crying out for Alison in her sleep. “This Ali, she is a sheep as well?”

Beth saw red at the sound of Alison’s name and she barely registered the sharp pain in her elbow when it slammed against Helena’s jaw, the movement had more force behind it than she’d expected and caused the assassin to drop to the floor, clutching the point of impact. Instinct took over and Beth’s feet pushed her to the mattress, she picked up her gun and turned to point it at the blonde. Helena was already moving, to a door not far from where Beth had dropped her. The detective aimed, her finger sliding to the trigger--she pulled it back and the sound of the thing nearly deafened her as it bounced repeatedly off the concrete. Helena had stopped moving, but Beth’s aim hadn’t and the bullet was buried in the concrete several feet ahead of Helena’s actual position.

Beth jerked the gun back to settle on Helena but froze at the look on the clone’s face. She was smiling again, all teeth and blood, her eyes looked…proud? Beth swallowed and tightened her grip on the gun. Shoot. Shoot her! Her finger began to squeeze against the trigger, but Helena was already gone.


	13. Anita Bowers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These past few chapters have been a bit short because they were some of the first I wrote, back when I thought chapters would run about 1000 words each. Friday will come bearing a longer update, I promise ;)

She slammed the door behind her, an unsteady hand dropping her pistol onto the couch. She clawed at her pocket, Helena’s smile had a home behind her eyelids and every blink was hell. It took a few swallows to get down all the pills. Beth doubled forward, pressed her forehead to the cool metal of the kitchen counter and tried to take a steadying breath. Her head throbbed with each beat of her heart, reminding her that the thing was still working, still pumping blood through her veins. It had been a long walk home, Helena had moved her unconscious body several blocks. Beth wondered how no one had seen them.

Helena knew about Alison. The memory flooded back, Beth ran her fingers through her matting hair, her hand came away wet with blood. She wiped her hand on her pants and took another deep breath, trying to steady her woozy swaying. She really had wanted Helena to kill her, for a split second she had prayed for it--to finally be free of this life. But Alison…she couldn’t let Helena get to Alison.

Or Cosima, or any of the others.

Beth checked the time, noon. Alison’s kids would be at school, she could go check on her. That was a terrible idea, Beth realized. She was covered in blood and Helena might still be watching her. She decided to get herself cleaned up. Her next thought was of going to the station, but flashes of Maggie’s twisted body swam in her vision. She picked up her chiming phone— it was an alarm she’d set to remind herself of the departmentally required psych eval. Well, Dr. Bowers, there was no escape now.

She headed for the bathroom.

***

Beth let out a sigh, crossing her legs and chewing roughly at her rubbery old gum. The waiting room was sterile, but in the homey way that shrink’s offices usually are. Things were getting complicated. Usually she appreciated complicated, it kept her mind off the hollow feeling in her chest. But right now she had…too much ‘complicated’. Organized crime on top of a killer clone that was toying with her--that was just a breath away from Alison.

Now she had to cover up the cold-blooded murder she’d committed, the cold-blooded murder that Art unwittingly involved himself in by placing Maggie Chen’s cell phone in her hand. Her only saving grace was that in the dim light Maggie Chen and Xan Yip were remotely passable. Kind of. Her statement made it very clear that it was a spur of the moment trigger-pull.

Tall, middle-aged, Asian women, both wearing black, sneaking around? Someone was bound to get killed. Beth was just thankful for the coincidence, and for the pills that kept her barely lucid. She knew Maggie was a bad woman, feeding information to psycho Helena. But she was an unarmed woman, killed by Beth’s own hand. The guilt was starting to stretch her around the edges.

Her clone phone lit up, it was a text from Cosima, she opened it fully--‘Katja just Skyped me, we may have a problem. DON’T FREAK OUT, just Skype me as soon as you get home. Hopefully it’s nothing.’

Beth sighed, Cosima. Something had happened to Katja? Don’t freak out? Had Cosima ever met Beth? Freaking out was all she ever did these days.

“Dr. Bowers will see you now.” The doctor’s assistant leaned out of her chair, eyes locked on Beth.

With a deep breath, Beth stood and made her way back into Bowers’ familiar office.

“Elizabeth,”

“Anita.” Beth greeted. The stocky doctor’s feathers ruffled a bit but she gestured to the chair across from her desk without confrontation. Beth basked momentarily in the simple pleasure of annoying the woman. She hated Anita Bowers, and she was almost certain the feeling was mutual.

“It’s been a while Beth,”

“Five months.”

“Rough news came down that you’ve been involved in a civilian shooting. Would you like to talk about that? Suspension can be very hard to deal with.”

“Nope.” Beth picked at the pilled fuzz on the seat of the chair.

Bowers hummed, “We’re going to have to talk about it. It’s why you’re here.”

“I’d rather talk about my meds. I misplaced a bottle, you see. The ones that keep me steady, I’d--“

“No, Elizabeth.” Bowers pointed her pen in Beth’s direction, glaring at her over her cat-eye glasses. “You’ve lost three bottles. I’m beginning to suspect you’re losing them down your throat.”

Beth cocked her head, “Some bedside manner.”

“Let’s get back to the shooting.”

She craned her neck to look at a nearby bookshelf, the throw pillows on the couch, a chip in the edge of the doctor’s desk. She reached out and fingered the notch, dipping into the rough groove of it. “I killed a woman, a case of mistaken identity.”

Bowers’ piercing eyes didn’t leave Beth’s face, she could feel them there, boring into her. She hated the way shrinks wrote down everything that came out of your mouth, little notes you’d never know, but she suddenly wished Anita would find something to write about.

“How are you handling that?”

“I’m good.” Beth tapped out a beat against the arms of her chair, dropping her head back, willing the time to pass quicker. She could hear Bowers shuffling her papers. She wondered If she bit her lip hard enough, if she could forget she was sitting in this scratchy chair.

***

Beth let the door of the office slam shut behind her, brushing past the secretary without returning her pleasantry. She hated Bowers, she hated her prying, her diagnoses, and she hated the power she held over Beth.

“Are you still experiencing moments of dissociation, Elizabeth?” Beth mimicked the doctor all the way to her car, shoving a new piece of gum in her mouth. “Have your panic attacks been more or less frequent, before the shooting of course?” Beth swung open her car door violently “Of course.”

She drove home faster than she should have. As the distaste of Anita Bowers faded from her mouth, the bile of Cosima’s vague text messages rose in her throat. Something was wrong with Katja?

She thought she saw a flash of blonde hair leaning against a light pole at an intersection, but when frantic brown eyes found the spot in her rear-view mirror there was no one there.

***

“Alison, what do you mean you don’t have me added on Skype?” Beth was sitting cross-legged on her bed, Skyped into a video call with Cosima who was on the phone with Alison trying to wrangle the rest of Clone Club into one space. It was like herding drunk cats. Katja was late and Alison had only ever used Skype to contact Beth and didn’t have anyone else’s information.

“Stop, stop, seriously you guys are giving me a headache. I’ll host the call.” Beth hung up with a heavy click. She rested her head in her hands. Was she having moments of dissociation? Had her panic attacks been more frequent, even before the shooting? Beth leaned back into her pillows, reaching to the night table where she’d left a pill bottle. She swallowed three and put it back.

She turned back to the computer and started a video call with AHendrix, looking anywhere but at the screen when the clone’s face came into focus. Alison cleared her throat and Beth glanced up to find her tense around the eyes and mouth. “Hello, Beth.” The pounding in Beth’s head sped up as her pulse did, radiating from the point of Helena’s vicious impact.

“I’m just going to patch the girls into the call now, be patient.” She tore her eyes from the other woman’s face, she couldn’t read Alison’s expression and she was very sure she didn’t want to. She couldn’t remember how she’d left things, if she’d stormed out of Alison’s house or if they’d kissed goodbye. She wasn’t sure if the ground beneath them was asphalt under her running shoes or a crumbling avalanche.

“I’m always patient,” Beth could hear as she added Cos420haus and RocknRollxxKO to the call.

Once they were all present and accounted for, Beth broke the silence, “So…? What’s with the pressing texts?”

Cosima looked uncomfortable, “Maybe, Katja should…”

Katja’s heavily accented voice broke through the awkward tension: “I am sick.”

“What?!” Beth and Alison spoke in unison while Cosima just chewed her bottom lip nervously.

“I am sick.” Katja repeated, she held up a tissue spattered liberally with flecks of red. “It is a respiratory illness of some kind.”

Cosima cut in with a voice meant to ease their fears, but her tone was lined with panic, “She may have caught some German wackiness, or bronchitis is always a possibility. The blood could be a throat irritation from coughing…strep maybe--“

“Or maybe it’s genetic.” Alison cut the scientist off, she wielded a pair of crafting scissors and gesticulated towards her screen aggressively, “What you’re saying is that this illness could be genetic.”

Cosima sighed and her head dropped out of frame, audibly thunking against her desk. “It’s plausible.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy, this chapter was not very good, was it? I'm sorry, I must have been having an off day when I wrote this one. I try to make a point not to post really sloppy stuff, so I went back to touch this up but I'm working on a new fic and my brain is 100% in high school AU mode so my attempt at editing was pretty unsuccessful. On the bright side, Friday's update is one of my favorites- I hope you're looking forward to it.


	14. Miles Apart

“Elizabeth, you can’t just leave this thing lying around.” Alison’s hushed voice turned to a hiss. “I have children.” Beth turned from her coffee to find Alison with her Walther between the tips of her index finger and thumb, held out away from her body. Her face was contorted in an unreadable, though all together unpleasant, mix of emotions.

Beth pushed her chair back and stood quickly, turning and taking the gun by the muzzle. Alison’s shoulders rolled uncomfortably, one arm covering her chest, the fingers of her other hand finding her temple. “Sorry,” Beth gruffed. She suppressed the thought that she hadn’t remembered unclipping the holster from her belt.

“It’s much heavier than it looks,” Alison muttered as Beth settled the thing back in place on her hip. The moon was full and peeking over the roof of Alison’s neighbor’s house, streaming light in through the kitchen window. It was 3 AM and Beth had driven there on auto-pilot. She had found herself sitting with both hands on the wheel, parked across the street. Had she been less cautious than normal? Had she led Helena into the suburbs? Beth could feel her blood moving through her body again, she could feel the fear and adrenaline.

Alison had ushered her in the house, looking around outside nervously before shutting the door and locking it. They had stood in the foyer for a few moments, both looking at the floor where their frantic indiscretion had occurred. Neither of them mentioned it, they just moved around each other in a dance, constantly maintaining several feet of safe distance.

They sat in silence in the kitchen, the only noise between them the percolating coffee maker. They’d looked into each other’s eyes for what seemed like an eternity until the quiet click of the machine signaled the completion of the brewing process.

“I wish you wouldn’t bring that thing into my house at all,” Alison spoke quietly, ever aware of her sleeping family.

“Yeah, well,” Beth sighed and ran her hand through her hair, “you’ll appreciate it when whoever is coming for us finally finds this place.”

Alison stiffened, stopping in the middle of her motion to pull a half-empty bottle of wine from the refrigerator. Beth immediately regretted her words and let her eyes run down Alison’s tense back. She stood and moved to stand behind the other woman, reaching for her hips. “I’m sorry.” Alison began to move again at her words as if snapped out of some spell. Beth was glad she couldn’t see her face— she thought the play of emotions across it might kill her. Alison turned, pulling the bottle to her chest when she came face to face with Beth and her outstretched hands. Their twin eyes locked and the small woman seemed happy to have something between them. Beth’s gaze dropped to the floor and she side-stepped out of the way, hands dropping uselessly to her sides.

Alison stayed unmoving for a moment before brushing past her in the tight space between the fridge and the kitchen island. She uncorked the bottle with shaky hands. “Would you like some wine, Elizabeth?” Beth shook her head, but Alison had her eyes on the liquid spilling into her glass.

The detective cleared her throat, “No, thanks, I’m good.” She gestured half-heartedly to her still-steaming coffee.

There was silence for a few moments before Alison spoke up, “What are you doing here, Beth?” Her words were as uneasy as her hands were when she set the bottle down on the countertop. Beth’s brown eyes fell to the nape of Alison’s neck but she didn’t answer, she only took a deep, audible breath and held it. She couldn’t bear to say it, couldn’t stand to see the look in Alison’s eyes. Alison turned quickly to face Beth, confronting her with angry eyes, and a weak throat. Beth stood uncomfortably at the motion and stuttered an empty reply, “I-I don’t know, I just…”

“You just…?” Alison waited, arms crossed. Beth thought of telling her, of pinning her to the island, of kissing her. When Beth didn’t continue, she moved on “Have you made any progress in figuring out who is killing the other…” Beth didn’t think the small woman could form the word ‘clone’ no matter how much her lips tried, “the others?”

Images of Helena earlier in the day flitted across Beth’s vision and her jaw clenched. “No,” she lied, “I’m working on it.”

“You’re working on it,” Alison huffed. “You’ve been working on it for months Elizabeth.”

A fire blossomed in Beth’s brain and she began to speak louder than she probably should have, “Yes, I have, I’m sorry I ha--” Alison shushed her angry outburst and Beth dropped her voice back down to a whisper, but none of the bitter passion had been lost. “I’m sorry I haven’t gotten anywhere, but I can still protect us.” That was a lie as well. Beth didn’t stand a chance against Helena, it had only taken her one look in those feral eyes to know it was true. Helena would kill her, she’d kill Beth and then Alison and then Cosima and Katja after that, and Beth would be powerless to stop it. And the illness? If it too was coming for them, Beth didn’t have a weapon to fight it. Her head fell backwards, eyes sliding shut, and her arms fell tired at her sides. 

Alison said nothing, just eyed Beth’s stretched throat and broken body. She stepped forward gingerly and Beth visibly flinched at the motion, her eyes opening and her head righting. The response caused Alison a moment of pause before she seemed to bolster her courage and continue forward to stop in front of the detective, her small hand reached out for Beth’s. “Beth?”

Beth swallowed and noticed the pink flush across Alison’s neck as her thumb brushed over the detective’s torn knuckles. “Beth?” The brunette repeated. Her eyes darted back up to Alison’s. “Will you teach me?” She nodded to the gun clipped on Beth’s hip. “I have no interest in guns, but if we don’t know anything about who is coming for us, if they could come at any time, I’d like to be ready…the kids…I need to--“

Beth looked away, her eyes harsh. “So I won’t need to be around here all the time, yeah, Alison?” She cut Alison off, ignoring the way she flinched. She understood the other woman’s need to protect her family--she understood it like she understood the heavy weight of it on her own chest. The pressure of protecting the women she had stumbled upon was mounting with every second that Helena wasn’t rotting in the ground. Still, the fear that Alison was looking for a way to push Beth out of her life was looming over her like a threatening cloud, it left a bitter taste in her throat. “So you don’t have to worry about me being too messed up to shoot straight anymore?”

Alison’s eyes softened, turning Beth’s hand in her own, her cool fingertips brushing over the detectives calluses. “No.” Beth thought it looked like Alison was going to say more, but the words had caught against her tongue and she was suddenly turning her back to Beth, releasing her hand. It was quiet for a full minute more before Alison spoke again. “You should go,” she said, but something in her voice sounded weak.

Beth swallowed heavily and she took a hesitant step towards Alison’s back, reaching out for her. “Beth, please,” the tears in Alison’s voice were louder than her whispered tone. Beth’s dark eyes slid shut and something twisted painfully in her chest. She turned from the kitchen, leaving Alison standing stock still with tight shoulders, eyes glued to the gentle bubbles sliding up the side of her wine glass.

***

Beth woke with a jerk from another nightmare, another replaying of Helena’s grotesque, bloody smile. Her hand slid across the bed to test the sheets, cold where Paul would have been earlier in the morning. She couldn’t remember him leaving. She’d taken more pills than she probably should have when she got in from Alison’s the night before. Beth blinked the fog from her eyes and sat, tucking an ankle under her opposite thigh and stretching her fingers and toes. She looked around the room, breathing out the tense ball of fear in her chest. She leaned off the edge of the bed to where she’d stumbled out of her jeans in the darkness of the night and fished her phones from the left front pocket.

Her work phone was blank, only the time staring back at her: 11:44 AM. It was nearly twelve hours since her run-in with Helena; Beth swore she could still smell the fishy-wet, salty smell of the beast. She rubbed the image of Helena’s frizzy hair from her eyes with weak fingers and pressed a button to light the screen on her clone phone. A text message from Alison, only partially visible, ‘Please let me know wh--‘. Beth navigated to her text messages and selected the new message to read it in its entirety.

‘Please let me know when a good time would be, Beth. I really would like to learn how to use a gun.’

Beth sighed and dropped the phone in her lap. Running her hands through her hair, she thought about her plans for the day. She had forgotten about Alison’s late-night request. She picked the phone back up and thumbed a reply, ‘I can work around your schedule, I need to get to the station at some point today, but I can go any time.’

She tossed the phone back down onto the plush comforter and swung her bare legs over the edge of the bed, the balls of her feet touching down on the cold floor. Standing, she moved to the bathroom and started the shower before turning to look at her reflection in the mirror. She tried to remember the last time she recognized the woman looking back at her. Her hand found the door to the medicine cabinet and her fingers closed around the first bottle she encountered. Pressing on the cap and twisting, she tipped several white circular pills into her palm and threw them into her mouth. She turned the tap on the sink and used her cupped hand to bring water to her mouth, swallowing the pills and looking up into the foreign eyes of her own reflection again. Who was she?

She whipped her arm back and then flung it forward, slamming her hand down on the tap, the water shut off with an angry clang. Beth threw the open pill bottle against the counter, scattering its contents across the sink and floor. Her trembling hands went to her face and she stood that way until the hot dampness of her breath against her palms became uncomfortable. She wiped them on her baggy grey t-shirt and with a shaky sigh she began to clean up her mess.

Once she had rebottled as many pills as she could find, she pulled her shirt over her head and slid her black panties to the floor, stepping out of them and reaching for the shower door. The water was hotter than she could stand and it scalded her skin, but she stood under it with her face contorted in pain, letting it spray over her head and shoulders, leaving red puffy skin wherever it ran. The realization that she was losing this fight crept into the corners of her mind. She was failing her friends and they would pay the ultimate price--horrific death at the hands of Helena. She had murdered a woman in cold blood to protect her friends, but they were still no closer to safety. What good was she to them if she couldn’t keep them safe? The shower was the only place Beth allowed herself to cry, where she couldn’t tell the difference between water and hot tears. Her knees gave and she collapsed, legs tucked underneath her; her shoulders lurched as she began to sob, gasping steam into her lungs until the tears finally stopped coming.

She stepped out onto the bathmat and reached for a towel, drying her angry red skin tenderly and wrapping it around herself. Back in the bedroom she scooped up the burner and checked it--Alison had sent four messages. She thumbed through to the texts:

12:00pm- ‘The station, were you reinstated? How about 2pm?’  
12:34pm- ‘Does that work for you?’  
12:52pm- ‘Elizabeth?’  
12:53pm- ‘Please don’t ignore me, I’m sorry about last night. We need you.’

Though there was no hesitation in the last text message, Beth could hear it, she could sense the stutter in Alison’s thumbs as she keyed in the final words. She could see the veil Alison had draped over her words, ‘I need you’. She closed her eyes tightly to hold back the wave of pain and opened them to glance at the clock, it was one ‘o clock, she’d been in the shower for a full hour. ‘You don’t need to apologize, you and I will be fine,’ she texted back, though she didn’t believe the words herself, ‘I was just in the shower. 2 is fine. I’ll pick you up.’ She reread the text and hit send.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next update is coming on Tuesday, hopefully a bit earlier in the morning than this one (oops, I fell asleep when I should have been posting this!). I can't think of a single soccercop fan who wouldn't give their first-born to see 'the shooting scene'. The next chapter isn't canon but at least you don't have to give up your first-born to read it, yeah?


	15. Squeeze, Steady Now

Alison brought in a trace of perfume with her when she slid into Beth’s car. She shut the door behind her and held her purse in her lap, not looking at or speaking to Beth. They sat that way for a moment, both looking out the windshield before Alison buckled her seatbelt and muttered “Thank you, Elizabeth.” She cleared her throat and spoke up, “I appreciate this. I know things were a little tense last night, but I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I know you’re doing your best to protect everyone.”

Beth nodded and glanced over at the woman in the passenger seat. Alison was wearing a blue turtleneck and a puffy white vest that had a high collar. Beth couldn’t see Alison’s jawline with the way it was tucked against her chest, but she imagined it was flexed in a hard line. “Don’t worry about it, Alison.”

“I’ve been thinking, it can’t be easy to get information out of people now that you’re suspended.”

Beth’s brow furrowed and she glanced over to Alison, “What?”

“You protect us and it can’t be easy to do that when you don’t have your badge to stand behind. How will you get information out of people if you’re not a police officer?” Alison had her arms crossed tightly against her chest.

“You really don’t need to worry about that kind of thing, Alison.” Beth’s voice was soft and sincere.

Alison nodded tightly before continuing, “I’d like to give you some money.”

“What?” Beth felt a ripple of shame burning across her chest, a pay off? For what, her services as a bodyguard? Did Alison think that’s what this was about?

“A self-defense fund. You don’t want to think about it, Beth, but we’re going to need to question people if we want to find out anything more about our nature.”

“You want me to bribe people?”

“I think bribing is better than the alternative of beating information out of people.”

“Do you think I’d assault people for answers?” Beth regretted asking the question, she didn’t want to know what Alison thought. She wasn’t even sure of the answer herself.

Alison sighed. “I think we’re scratching the surface of something much deeper…illegal human cloning trials. Having the money available means we don’t have to think about the alternative.” She shook her head lightly, “Consider it peace of mind.”

“Alison, I don’t think-“

“Elizabeth, please, let me contribute.” Beth could hear the plea in Alison’s voice. This had very little to do with the need to interrogate people and had much more to do with Alison’s need to feel like she was bringing something to the table. Beth protected them, Cosima gave them the scientific answers they needed, Alison clearly needed to feel like she’d earned a place beside them.

She sighed, “Yeah, sure. I can see how some cash would be helpful.”

“Great, I’ll get it to you soon, you can set up a bank account.”

The rest of the drive into the country was quiet, the women sitting in comfortable silence. When they pulled off the dirt road they’d been driving on Alison looked around. “Where are we?” she asked, looking over at Beth unbuckling her seatbelt and reaching across the enormous chasm between them to open the glove box. Alison flinched when the back of the other woman’s hand accidentally knocked against her knee. Beth said nothing, just grabbed a pack of gum from the compartment and shut the door. “Beth? What’s out here?”

Beth was halfway out of the car when she turned back to look at Alison’s confused face, popping a piece of gum between her lips. “Nothing,” she smiled, it felt easy and natural and Beth liked the way it fit. Alison huffed in response and opened her door, meeting Beth at the back of the car. The detective was pulling a range bag and a reusable grocery tote filled with beer bottles from the trunk. She hoped Alison wouldn’t notice the drugged ease of her movements.

“Do you really thing we should be drinking while handling weapons?” Alison asked through the fingers pressed to her mouth.

Beth responded by simply shaking the bag, making the bottles clank hollowly against each other.

“Oh, targets?” Alison asked, realization dawning across her features. Beth nodded and began to walk into the tall grass. Alison found herself smiling at the other woman’s retreating back before steeling herself, fists thrust down to her sides. She marched after Beth.

After a few minutes of walking through hip-tall brown grass, the pair reached a clearing. Posts that once held up a barbed-wire fence were lined up, bits of rusty wire hung off a few, some were tipped over, and others were missing entirely. The whole field was forgotten, it seemed, and the shorter grass beneath their feet was brown, patchy and dead. Alison watched Beth put down the bags in the grass and move to set up two bottles on posts. She bent down and looked in the black case Beth had dropped at her feet, it had several full magazines, two pairs of safety glasses and earmuffs, a quick-loader, and a stack of three red cardboard boxes full of extra rounds. She picked up a magazine to inspect it more closely.

“You’ve got these clips all ready and loaded I see.” Beth heard her say with an air of confidence and satisfaction, she sounded like she was eager to begin. Alison looked in Beth’s direction when she heard an unusual noise and found Beth, back to her, shoulders shaking. She had so rarely heard the other woman laugh--it was quiet and deeper than one would imagine. “What?” Alison asked.

“They’re magazines,” Beth said, “clips just store the rounds, magazines feed them into the gun.”

Alison’s lips tightened in a firm line and her head ticked to the side in annoyance. She was visibly stifling the need to snark back and instead muttered through her teeth, “Good to know.”

Beth turned and walked towards her, unholstering her weapon in a practiced motion and pointing it towards the ground. Alison watched her carefully. Beth could see in the other woman’s eyes, even from a distance, that the vision was an intimidating sight. When she reached Alison’s side she tilted the gun in her hand. “This is a Walther P99,” Beth said, pausing before adding “it’s loaded.” She moved the weapon into a position to show Alison it’s parts, first pointing to the grip “a gun like this is good for women with smaller hands.”

“Like us,” Alison responded.

“Like us.” Beth confirmed and continued, “This is the safety.” She pushed it with the side of her thumb, “off, on, off, on. See the red dot?” She cycled back and forth, leaving it in the ‘on’ position. “This is the magazine release,” she hit it and the magazine slid partially out of the grip of the gun. She looked at Alison for confirmation of her understanding.

Alison, one hand fiddling with her earlobe and the other in a fist on her hip, flicked her eyes between Beth’s and the gun. She nodded and repeated, “Safety. Magazine release.”

Beth nodded and tried to smile widely again, it felt just as good as it had when they were standing by the car. “Good. Ready?” She pushed the magazine back in and it settled with a comfortable click. She let the gun’s weight drop forward, holding onto the very base of the grip so Alison could get her hand around it.

The other woman tensed slightly and she sputtered a bit, “Already? That was the whole lesson?”

“The whole lesson? No. But you’re good, go ahead,” Beth held the pistol closer to Alison. After a few moments her eyes softened, “You’re fine, I promise…I’m right here.” Alison seemed to relax a bit and nodded, unknotting her arms and reaching for the gun with cautious hands. “It’s just a tool, Alison, you’re in control.” The weight of the weapon shifted as Alison took the grip and held it. She adjusted to the weight of it, holding it far out in front of her and bouncing her arms gently. “Finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire.”

Alison nodded again, and let out the breath she was holding, “This isn’t so bad.”

“Yeah,” Beth laughed that low, smooth laugh again and Alison smiled at her. She evened the gun out in front of her and closed one eye, focusing down the sights. Beth bent down while watching Alison with one eye and picked the protective gear out of the range bag. She spread the muffs apart and brought them down over Alison’s head, causing the small woman to flinch in surprise. Beth edged to the side, though Alison still had the gun steady in front of her, “Whoa now, just ear protection.” She flashed a grin and Alison smiled shyly. It was like they’d never made that mistake, like they were still okay. It made Beth’s stomach do somersaults.

“Sorry, little jumpy I guess.” She used her left hand to adjust the earmuffs into a comfortable place. Beth handed her the glasses and Alison put them on. The detective nodded and donned her own equipment. She held up her hands to show Alison she intended to touch her, and in response Alison turned again to face forward, raising the gun and holding the butt of it with her opposite hand like she’d seen on television. Beth put her hands on Alison’s shoulders and squared them and used a boot to gently nudge the other woman’s feet. “Hips-width apart.” Alison shifted appropriately. “Good,” Beth said quietly, she leaned closer until she was even with Alison’s shoulder. “Finger off the trigger, alright, safety off,” Alison tilted the gun to get a better look and disengaged the safety as she had seen Beth do. “Perfect, look down the sights,” one hand stayed on Alison’s shoulder while the other moved around to point at the two notches on the top of the pistol, “you want to see a half-moon shape here, this dot…good.”

She covered Alison’s grip hand with her own, causing the other woman to shift uneasily and swallow at the closeness. “Hold it steady it’s going to recoil when you fire, be ready,” she settled her hands on Alison’s waist for a moment before taking a step back and releasing her, “put your finger on the trigger and apply even pressure.”

There was a long pause while Alison’s finger tightened against the trigger. “A bit harder, steady pressure, keep squeezing…”

A crack rang out through the empty air and Alison jumped at the sound. “Oh!” She let out a squeak and blinked for a moment before a wide smile spread across her face, her voice was muffled in Beth’s ears. The bullet had completely missed her target, burying into a dirt pile on the other side of the fence. “I did it!” Alison turned quickly, whipping her body around to face Beth.

“Whoa!” Beth moved in a blur, instinctually grabbing Alison’s swinging gun arm. “Hey now! Watch where you point the damn thing, Ali, Jesus!” she would have sounded angry but her mouth was broken open in the widest smile Alison had ever seen on her.

“A-Ali?” Alison, looking apologetic, pointed the gun towards the ground and away from Beth and slid her ear protection down around her neck. Beth hadn’t used the nickname since that evening.

Beth’s head dipped, her hair falling in a curtain over her face, “Sorry…Alison. You did g-“

“N-no! I mean-“ Alison stuttered, her hand moving to fiddle with the troublesome baby hair falling out of her ponytail. “It’s okay, you just-“

“You missed, but it was a good first try, better than mine by far.“

The two spoke over each other for a few moments before falling into a sudden silence. Alison’s eyes were inspecting Beth’s face, making her shift uncomfortably. It was the same way Alison had looked at her before they’d gotten all tangled up in each other. The feel of the other woman’s lips was something she knew she would never forget. “Uh,” the detective cleared her throat, “t-try again.” She said it like a question, pointing towards the target bottles. “Try not to point it at me this time.”

Alison dipped her head in embarrassment, nodding furiously and turning back to the bottles. She shot three more times, all misses, but her shoulders were slowly relaxing with each pull of the trigger. Beth reached out and touched her arm gently to stop her from firing again. “You’re locking your arm,” the detective pointed out, stepping behind Alison again, her body pressed to the other woman’s back. Alison blinked furiously at the pressure and nervously stretched her neck, Beth’s left hand settled on her hip, her strong fingers curling around the bone, her right nudged Alison’s arm back up into shooting position and cupped her elbow.

“When you lock up like this the recoil will throw off your next shot. If you’re loose your body can slide back into position, correct the recoil, you know?” The gentle pressure of Beth’s fingers on the inside of her joint prompted Alison to bend it slightly, Beth positioned it at a good angle. “There you go,” her voice was a quiet rumble at Alison’s ear, “give it another try, down the sights now.” She slid Alison’s ear protection back in place for her and took a step back.

The next crack grazed a bottle and it broke, spinning off of it’s post. Beth hooted loudly and threw a fist in the air. Alison smiled broadly and bounced on the balls of her feet before letting out a small, experimental shout of her own. Both women laughed at the noise. Beth noticed the flush of Alison’s cheeks, she knew the rush of shooting and she reached out to fix a strand of hair that had caught in the corner of Alison’s mouth. The small woman started to recoil but stood still, allowing Beth to pull the hairs free, it took her a moment to regain her composure. She slid one sweaty palm at a time down the front of her vest, transferring the gun back and forth. “Thank you for this, Beth.”

The detective nodded, pressing her lips together in a tight smile. “Yeah, no problem Alison. Empty that sucker and I’ll teach you how to use the quick-loader.”

“Just Ali is fine,” was the brunette’s only reply before she turned and lined herself up for her next shot. They both pretended that Alison couldn’t tell that Beth was flying on more than just adrenaline.

***

“She’s rarely here anymore! What do you want me to do, tie her down?!” Beth’s key was poised to slide into the lock when she heard shouting from inside the house. Paul sounded more passionate than she’d heard him in a month. “You said she should make her own decisions! I don’t know what you want from me.” Her brow furrowed and she let her hand drop to her side, folding the key back into her palm and leaning towards the door.

“I’m not sure if she’s going to be here tonight. If she is I’ll call you and you can send your guy in.” He was talking about her, wasn’t he? “Yeah, she shot a civilian, I think she’s losing it, Olivier.” He was talking about her to someone, but she couldn’t hear anyone else in the apartment, he must have been on the phone. “Fine, I’ll be in for the eval at 1am.” A pause, a bang--his hand hitting the counter? Beth strained to hear Paul’s muttered curse. She could hear him moving around now, angry, heavy sounds.

She slowly backed away from the door, moving to her car.


	16. A Deal with the Devil

It was 1am, and Beth had tailed Paul all the way to some seedy industrial area. She remembered the note she found in the kitchen with the GPS coordinates of Genny’s house and rented a car for fear of a tracker hidden somewhere in her own. The buildings were tall and had a constant wet look about them, like rivers flowed down, rusty silt deposits gathering along their banks. It wasn’t just the buildings, everything looked wet, even the ground--like it always was just after the rain stopped. She craned her neck to look out the window, Paul made his way into the building, shoulder to shoulder with the gothic freak show parade. What was Paul doing hanging out with these weirdoes? 

Once he entered the building she slid from her car, glancing around to spot the closest vampire-wannabes. “Hey,” She called over.

The pair turned slowly towards each other to share a look before continuing on to stare at her with matching gazes. Each of them had one white-blue eye. Rather than feeling the fear she guessed this display was supposed to evoke, she just felt annoyed and impatient. “C’mere.” She spat her gum out and gestured them over, “What is this place?”

“Neolution…” said the first.

“Is a nightclub…” said the second. Their voices were slow, their words drawn out and melodic and they finished each other’s sentence like they were two halves of the same whole.

“Not for pretty little things like you…” the first hummed at her, waving a hand at her outfit as if it offended him.

“Club Neolution is a place for people like us.”

“Like you?” Beth resisted the urge to smack the two teenagers in the back of their silver spray-painted heads. “What makes you so special?”

“We’re Neolutionists, we follow the teachings of Dr. Aldous Leekie.”

Beth hummed in affirmation, cult freaks. “Good to know.” She waved them off and as they were walking away she shouted after them: “Don’t drink any Kool-Aid, you two.” She ducked back into her car. 

Neolution, Dr. Aldous Leekie. Beth took out her new phone and googled.

***

“Hey, Raj. I need some surveillance equipment, think you could help a friend out?” Beth had spent the night in the rental, too afraid to go home, too weak to go to Alison’s. After they’d spent the day shooting, things had finally felt right between them. She didn’t want to go in with messy hands and a lead-heavy stomach to twist important words around a fumbling tongue.

“Man, you are ruthless Detective Childs. You do know what suspension means, don’t you?”

Beth chuckled into her phone, “You know me, Raj. I can’t let this get in the way of the rest of my work. I’ve got a lot of open cases. And it’s not like I’m blatantly breaking the rules. I’m just doing a little here and there.” There was quiet for a moment, but it wasn’t tense, Beth actually thought she could hear a boyish grin cross Raj’s face. “So, a little equipment, what do you think?” 

“Yeah, I could swing something. Come by the station?”

“I can be there in an hour. Meet you in the North Lot?”

He agreed and she hung up. She dropped the new phone in her lap and leaned her head back into the headrest. She needed to think about the new information but was worried that another run would just end in another head wound and another encounter with the deadly Helena. She could feel the killer-clone close, Beth saw her in mirrors and behind her eyelids and in flashes on the street, always disappearing before Beth could get her into focus. The station had a gym, maybe she could get a few minutes in on a treadmill in relative safety.

***

“Hey, thanks. I owe you one.”

“Big time,” Raj smiled. Beth liked his smiles, they were always genuine. He reached out, a metal briefcase extended.

She took it and tossed it in the back seat. When she got home she’d hide it by the spare under the bottom flap of her trunk where prying Paul wouldn’t think to look, she thought.

“Who’re you spying on?” Raj asked, his voice curious and without an ounce of judgment.

“Ah,” Beth paused for a second, after giving Raj a once over she decided to be honest, “it’s not police business. I think my boyfriend might be lying to me.”

Raj’s eyebrows shot up. “Catch him in the act, then?”

“That’s the plan.” She smiled and he eased.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“I hope I don’t.” Beth pat Raj on the shoulder and nodded towards the building. “I was planning on spending some time in the gym, are you busy?”

“I’m always busy when the word ‘gym’ comes up.” He laughed an easy laugh. “I’m more of a sedentary kind of guy.”

Beth nodded and grinned, “No problem, just thought I’d offer.” She dug her duffle bag out of the back seat and slung it over her shoulder.

“I’ll walk with you though,” he canted his body towards the building, gesturing over his shoulder, “if you want.”

“Yeah, that’d be nice.” Beth fell in step, his strides were long, but she kept up without issue.

“Did you get that text I sent you?” At Beth’s confused head-tilt he clarified, “Tony Sawicki?”

Beth’s eyes lit up and she stopped in her tracks, surprising Raj who had to double back a pace to stand in front of her. How could s have forgotten about Tony Sawicki? “No, my phone broke, I had to get a new one, it must have gotten lost in the mess. Did you find anything?”

“Yeah, a record, I didn’t dig around too much. Wouldn’t want people thinking I’m trying to be a cop,” he laughed at this. “I can send you the file though, if you want.”

Beth nodded eagerly, “Yeah, I’d really appreciate that, Raj.”

The rest of their walk was filled with peaceful small-talk. Beth hated small-talk, but it felt natural and calming to talk to someone this way, someone who wasn’t knee deep in clone conspiracy. She’d never thought of Raj as a friend, just an acquaintance from work, but maybe things could change. He was a good guy.

Who was she kidding? There were no ‘friends’ anymore, they were all just soldiers on sides of a war that Raj didn’t even know existed. That’s why she liked him, because he didn’t have an agenda, he didn’t have a side. They parted ways outside the glass doors that lead to the gym.

Beth threw her duffle bag into a locker and changed into work-out clothes. She walked into the gym proper and surveyed the area, slinging a sweat towel over her shoulder. The free-weights were taken up largely by overly-buff beat cops, but the treadmills had a few openings. She found one and settled in, wringing her wrist where her tracker used to sit. She’d give anything to find it. She pushed some buttons on the display, filled her ears with buds connected to her mp3 player. When her feet hit the moving ground she fell in step and closed her eyes, willing her problems to just work themselves out as she gradually increased the speed.

She was only just starting to see the lines in the sand, Dr. Leekie, and his Neolutionists, Helena and her Proletheans, and what…a ragtag group of self-aware clones? She wondered who she could trust when the factions split: religion and science. The Proletheans were clearly trying to kill them, training Helena for who knows how long to do just that. How did they get their hands on a clone? How long had they had her? What did they tell her to convince her to kill her own flesh and blood--literally?

And the Neolutionists, it wasn’t hard to find out more about them, their credo was blazoned across message boards: Self-Directed Evolution. Doctor Leekie was outspoken, she’d watched a video of him promoting his ideals in a TED talk while she was waiting for sleep to find her in a car deep in the industrial district. He was an excellent speaker, compelling, she could see how he gained followers. But his flowery words hid the real brunt of his mission--eugenics. Beth was no scientist, but the term left a dirty taste in her mouth, like she needed to brush her teeth after thinking about it.

Leekie worked for a corporation called the DYAD Institute. Beth couldn’t help but wonder if this was where he split his ranks, the scientists to study at DYAD, the freaks to party at Club Neolution. Paul’s “eval” was there, a night club.

For someone so interested in genetics and altering humans to create better people…Leekie seemed like the type who would have a vested interest in dipping his toes into the clone gene pool, if only to test the water before he dove in. She wondered how much Leekie knew, if he was the one Paul was reporting to.

She needed more information, and she couldn’t keep pumping Raj like a well. The time was fast approaching, she needed to decide how far she’d be willing to go. Bribery? Assault? Murder? She’d already crossed that line, though she’d prefer to not have to cross it again. She sped up the treadmill again, knowing that her preferences didn’t change the fact that Helena needed to be dealt with.

How much of this information should she share with the others? Cosima was pressed with looking through options for Katja. Alison was…not really an option right now.

Her clone phone chimed, speak of the devil. A text from Cosima: ‘I could really use Katja’s samples. If she got here, do you think we could keep her safe from whoever is following her?’

Beth sighed and used the arm rails to lift herself off of the moving track, setting her feet down on the running bars. She leaned her elbows on the metal heart rate contacts. Katja was safer in Berlin. ‘Things are kind of heating up here. I can’t say much yet, but I don’t think the killer is in Europe anymore.’ The machine beeped, trying to determine her heart rate through the tough skin of her elbows.

‘Have you made contact?’

‘No. It’s just…a feeling. I think Katja may be better off staying in Germany.’

‘Okay…but it’s not just the killer. She’s got a killer inside her now. I’d really like to examine her, Beth.’

She groaned and dropped her head down to the handle bar, her arms folding over the top of her head. She stayed that way for a full minute before straightening back up and responding to her stubborn clone. ‘We’ll talk about this later. I’ve got a long day.’

She slipped the phone back in the cup holder but it chimed again, Cosima always had to have the last word--it was a trait they shared. ‘Beth, she’s sick. Like, could-be-dying sick. I’d like to do some tests. I don’t want to lose a sister before I’ve even met her.’

‘We’ll talk about it later.’ She hoped Cosima could hear the finality of it through the words on her screen.

After a few more seconds of silence, Beth shoved the phone back in the cup holder and turned her music back on, dragging her toe across the moving track of the machine momentarily as if to judge it’s speed before hopping back on and falling into pace.

***

Bugging Paul’s work was an easier task than she’d anticipated. She sent Madison a wink to suggest an elaborate romantic surprise was in the works, and the young secretary called Paul away from his office with a gleeful smile--happy to be in on the secret.

With the two freakishly-tall humans gone, tiny Beth was able to duck under Paul’s desk unseen to set up an audio recorder as well as a key-stroke logger on his computer. She was in and out in minutes. She caught Madison’s eye, who had positioned Paul with his back to his office, and gave her a conspiratorial grin and an overly enthusiastic two thumbs up. She turned, spinning around the corner, and walking out of the office as fast as she could, not releasing the breath she’d been holding until the car door was shut behind her.

Step one: Monitor Paul.

***

Step two: Check out DYAD.

If her suspicions were correct she couldn’t march into the building in downtown Toronto without causing quite a stir. If this was the company that had created the clones with the help of the Neolutionists they’d likely spot her in a second. So she settled for sitting across the street in her car, snapping pictures with the camera that came in Raj’s spy kit. She spent hours there and was nearly falling asleep when suddenly a van pulled up. Beth sat up quickly, the fingernail on her ring finger finding a home between her nibbling teeth. From the back of the van came a frail woman, weak and wobbly. A young man held her by her upper arm, his other hand hovering near her waist as if to catch her should she fall. Beth squinted and spit out a nail fragment. She pulled the camera up to her eye, zooming in until she could see the puffs of breath coming from a broad mouth, the breeze blowing through wavy brown hair, the deep brown eyes squinting into the sun, crinkling against round cheeks. Another clone. The woman was another clone.

Beth felt frozen in her seat, unsure of what to do or say, but when the woman doubled over coughing she felt a tightness in her own chest, a slow-moving oil slick of unease moved through her veins. The young man at her side waited, his hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles until her fit was over. When he helped her to her full height, Beth’s heart stopped at the sight of blood splatter. It had sprung from her lungs and throat, splattering her white shirt and shoes, her forearms and hands, she looked like a Jackson Pollock painting. Beth imagined it’d be called ‘Hope Lost’.

She grabbed her phone and called Cosima, the perky answer came and without pleasantries, Beth spoke: “Talk to the German, set up a date, we need to get her out here and into your lab.”

Cosima took a breath as if to answer, but the line was disconnected before she could speak.

Beth thrust her clone phone into her jacket pocket and gripped the steering wheel firmly. She watched, in pained fascination, while a wheelchair was brought around. Their new sister--a sister they would never meet, was wheeled, wracked with smaller coughs, into DYAD.

There had been entirely too much blood in Beth’s life lately. She couldn’t help but feel like she was biding her time until it was her turn. How long would it be until she was laying in a pool of her own oozing black crimson?

There was a knock on her passenger side window, a knuckle rapping against the glass that startled Beth from her thoughts. A man in a suit glared at her from behind a pair of aviators. Beth’s hand jerked to the automatic lock but the rental car’s buttons were in unfamiliar places and the man was opening the door before her fumbling fingers found purchase.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was accusatory and he leaned into her car with a pistol faster than she could react. Beth opened her mouth to respond but couldn’t find words that would fit around the knot in her throat. “Drive.” He said, sliding in across from her and shutting the door.

“Wh-where are we going?” Beth finally croaked after a few minutes of taking his direction.

“Shut up. Turn left.”

She did as she was told, the muzzle of his gun digging painfully into her ribs. Ten minutes and several turns later they were parked in the underground lot of a luxury apartment building. “Put your hands on the dashboard. If you move them, it will be the last thing you do.” He exited the car first, keeping the gun trained on her through the windshield as he rounded the car. He jerked the door open and dragged her from the car by her hair.

***

He had her stretched tall with her wrists zip-tied around the shower head. The bathroom was a stark white that matched the rest of the enormous apartment. Immediately after immobilizing her he’d left the room to make a phone call. She unballed her fists and twisted her wrists against the bindings. Beth had clenched her hands and the muscles in her forearms to make as much room as possible for herself when the brown-haired man was restraining her. The police academy taught all recruits how to get out of zip-ties but the angle was a difficult one to gain leverage against.

Her escape attempt was stalled when he returned to the bathroom. He pulled a leather strip and a shaving kit from under the sink while glaring at her from the corner of his eye. “What is your name?”

“Amanda Woodside.” She responded quickly.

“What were you doing outside of DYAD?”

She hesitated. His head snapped in her direction, his face was hard and unforgiving. “I-I was trying to gather information.”

He sharpened a fixed-blade razor against the leather strip for a few beats before stepping into the shower with her. His breath was brutal against her face as he leaned in close, bringing the razor to glide against her cheek. “About?”

She swallowed, trying to calm the panic pulsing through her, trying to ignore the coursing of blood through her veins. Her mind raced to find an acceptable answer, but all she could think about was the uncontrollable shaking that vibrated her body against the wall of the shower. She shut her eyes tightly against the sight of him.

“About?” His voice threatened punishment for her continued silence. She felt an excruciating burning slice behind her left ear as his razor made quick work of the sensitive skin it found there. Beth screamed at the pain of it. “Tell me what you were looking for, what do you know?!”

Before she could manage a response, the door of the apartment opened and clacked shut and a moment later someone stopped in the doorway of the bathroom. “Daniel.” The woman’s voice was cold and terse, lilted with a posh English accent. The man pulled away from her, stepping out of the shower.

She opened her eyes to look at the woman. Her heart stopped— her savior shared her face. “Rachel,” Daniel responded, “I caught her in a car outside DYAD.”

The clone stood regal in high heels and a pencil skirt, her movements were precise and controlled. Her hair was dyed blonde and cut in a short bob that followed her jaw line. The woman blinked a few times in silent thought, though she was obviously unfazed by the sight of Beth. “Release her.” She said without further instruction.

Daniel’s jaw visibly clenched, he obviously had further plans for her. He looked at her with bitter eyes before sawing through her restraints with the razor. As soon as her hands were free they shot to her messy wound, trying to stop the blood pouring from the precise cut.

“You will leave. Now. You will not speak of this to anyone. You will not mention DYAD to a single soul. Do you understand me?” Rachel waited for a response, and at Beth’s nod she continued. “What is your name?”

“Amanda Woodside.” Her voice faltered around the lie.

Rachel’s heels clacked against the tile of the bathroom, slow and methodical. The clone moved like a lion, sure and strong. “If you lie to me again I will turn my back and walk away. Do understand, this is a mercy— what I’m offering you.”

Beth swallowed, the pressure of it hurt her ear. “Elizabeth Childs.” Daniel cast a furious glare at her.

“Elizabeth Childs.” Rachel repeated, tasting the name on her tongue. “Do you understand the severity of this situation, Miss Childs?” She didn’t give Beth the chance to answer. “I will have you killed if you utter a word of this to anyone. However, if you cooperate, we can work together.” Beth nodded frantically, desperate to get out of the apartment, her vision blurring with tears. “Someone will come to you tomorrow. They will have a contract which you will sign. Do you understand me?”

“H-how will you find me?”

A horrific, frozen smile spread slowly across the clone’s face like an iceberg. She was close enough to sink her sharp white claws into Beth’s throat. “Leave. Now.” Rachel’s eyes darkened as they moved from Beth’s to Daniel’s. She was opening her mouth to speak to him but Beth didn’t wait around to find out what the terrifying double had to say. She ran from the apartment.

***

Daniel came to her the next day, as Rachel promised. When she opened the door she was roughly pushed into the house by two men who quickly found the gun tucked against the small of her back. Disarmed, with her hands in the air, they released her.

“This is a confidentiality agreement.” Daniel strode further into her house and set the contract on the kitchen counter, producing a pen from his inside his jacket and setting it down on top of the stack of papers.

Beth walked shakily to read it. “What am I agreeing to, exactly?”

“You’re agreeing to keep your mouth shut.” He didn’t have to say ‘or you’ll be killed’.

“Why did Rachel let me go?” She asked.

He didn’t respond, just glared at her from under his heavy brows. This was clearly a topic of conversation that he was ‘contractually obligated’ to avoid. Beth might have laughed if the situation weren’t so tense and frightening.

“If I sign this, will you leave me alone?”

“When you sign it you’ll be safe, Rachel wants you alive for now. She is willing to answer your questions in exchange for your loyalty.”

She picked the pen up and signed her name on the line, though she wasn’t entirely sure she’d had a choice in the matter. Daniel scooped up the papers, pulled the pen from her trembling fingers and left quicker than he’d come, his lackeys exiting behind him.

What had just happened?

 

***

Monitor, subject, tests, experiments. Questions probing into their relationship.

It was a week later and Beth was in the living room, having just got in from collecting her borrowed tech from Paul’s office. She was pouring over the information with horrified eyes. She knew she should be leaving the investigation behind her, the threat of Rachel and Daniel always looming, but Helena was still lurking and the illness that ate away at Katja’s lungs was an urgent matter. After seeing the nameless clone at DYAD, Beth knew she needed to find answers or the German was doomed.

Each word, each methodically answered question, brought Beth closer and closer to jumping off the nearest bridge. Paul was a plant. Neolution, and probably DYAD by extension, had given her Paul--gift wrapped neat and tidy: her very own perfect boyfriend. No wonder he would never leave no matter how hard she pushed him. Not because he loved her, like she’d hoped, but because it was his job. He was there to take notes in her daily life, schedule visits while she was sleeping for medical examinations, and report back to his handler— Olivier.

DYAD was keeping tabs on her, they had been for years. That was how Rachel’s lips sounded like they’d spoken her name before and how Daniel knew where to bring the contract.

She’d feared Rachel’s first call after she left the apartment would be to Paul but he’d fretted over her when she’d walked through the door, apparently oblivious to their meeting. His features twisted when he saw the large rectangle of gauze taped behind her ear. A mountain biking accident, she explained, a day trip to the trails gone wrong. She’d assured him she was fine and he’d believed her without question. A genuine smile spread across her face and her heart fluttered at his open concern, but she forced herself to remember that he was just a spy, that this display of emotions was just a farce.

She couldn’t be alone, the other clones were likely to have ‘monitors’ as well. The German’s was almost certainly her boyfriend, she spoke of him often, he rarely left her side as they fled. He was the only part of her life she hadn’t managed to leave behind. She loved him, and it seemed like he loved her too. She hoped for Katja’s sake that his feelings for her weren’t manufactured as Paul’s had been. She’d need the support if the sick clone outside of DYAD was any indication.

Beth didn’t want Katja’s monitor to know about the trip, she didn’t want him to know about the others. Katja had promised her to keep their sisters hidden, even from him. Beth was grateful, but wondered how willing he would be to let her fly off to Canada by herself. If he knew about the illness, would he pressure her to stay? Would he become a problem that only Beth could deal with? More blood, more bodies? She knew she would kill for Katja. She would kill to protect her sisters, she’d done it before and she was sure she’d do it again. Even if every body was another slung over her shoulders as she slid into her grave as if through quicksand, the weight of their corpses pushing her down faster. She would pull the trigger again without question.

Killing a monitor would probably be a breach of contract.

She stood and stretched, cracking joints where she could, feeling the trembling of muscles along the backs of her arms and ribs.

She worried about Alison and Cosima, no one had stood out to her as being their monitors. Alison had Donnie, but she’d told Beth they’d met as children in high school…a bit early for DYAD to be recruiting. Cosima had recently moved to Minnesota, just starting there this semester and she occasionally mentioned how she missed her friends back home, how she didn’t have anyone at school. None of her friends had decided to go to U of M, she hadn’t been followed, meaning her monitor had to be someone new in her life.

Normally that would have put Beth at ease, but she remembered how open and revealing Cosima could be, the way she shared her birthday with a complete stranger in two minutes of awkward conversation over the phone. That kind of openness could get her in trouble if someone were to come along and try to find a place in her life.

As much as Cosima understood about the workings of the universe, she was surprisingly dense when it came to human intention.

Beth was torn, she wanted to tell the others about the monitor situation, but she didn’t want to scare them. Her whole life was about finding a balance between honesty and keeping her sisters from panicking. The only thing harder than herding drunk cats was herding drunk cats safely through a gunfight.

No, she thought, she’d only tell them things they needed to know.

***

Beth couldn’t sleep. She rubbed her eyes and grabbed her phone off the bedside table, swiping and thumbing in her password. She stole a glance out of the corner of her eye, Paul was fast asleep. Good. In the morning he was leaving to visit family for a week and it would have been a lie if Beth said she wasn’t relieved at the idea of time apart. It had been hard to pretend around Paul, every question he asked her, every time he looked at her, she questioned his motives. Was he even visiting his parents?

Tony Sawicki had been easy for Raj to find because he was in the system. Unlike Cosima, his arrests were for more dangerous infractions. And even after a single glance at his mug shot, Beth knew he was a clone. Under his dirty face were familiar cheekbones, a wide mouth, his eat-shit grin was spot on--twisted lips and broad, prominent canines.

A male clone made little sense, but the surprise ran even deeper when Beth dug into Tony’s background. He was transgender, designated female at birth. The revelation led Beth down a rabbit hole of wikipedia articles— gender dysphoria, hormone therapy, transitioning. Beth assumed Tony was taking testosterone after another look at his bearded face.

It was a lot of information, and it was keeping her awake. She was a naturally protective person, she was the kid who stood between the bullies and the smaller kids on the playground. It was a trait that had led her to become a police officer. Thoughts of what Tony might have gone through, her own brother, caused an ache in her chest. She tried not to feel too strongly for him because, unlike Cosima, Tony hadn’t grown out of his rebellious teenage phase. He had a storied history with law enforcement in Cincinnati, Ohio-- a long, dangerous past.

Tony and Sarah were problems. Beth needed to protect them from Helena and DYAD, but they were criminals--actual, dangerous criminals. Both had committed violent crimes and Beth wasn’t sure how comfortable she felt letting them in to Clone Club. Would they pose a risk to Katja, Cosima, and Alison? If she didn’t do anything, they might very well end up dead. It was an overwhelming realization, how could she keep them safe while still protecting Clone Club from the two career criminals?

Without taking the time to think about her decision, her plane ticket was booked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this chapter was pretty crazy, thanks for sitting though it. The decision to put Rachel and Daniel in this story was not an easy one. I had planned it in the beginning, and then changed my mind, and then after the story was finished I went back and altered from this point on to include their run-in. My reasoning hinges on the fact that I just CANNOT believe that it's coincidental that Daniel cut Sarah in the EXACT same place that Beth had a scar. I can't believe it. It's too eerily similar. He could have cut her cheek, he could have cut her neck, but no-- he cut her behind her left fucking ear? Sometimes a scar is just a scar, but sometimes a scar is a run-in with Daniel.
> 
> Get hyped, Beth's flight leaves for Ohio on Tuesday morning at our usual time.


	17. Tony Sawicki

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going to take a brief soccercop-intermission to talk about Paul. I know, that is EXACTLY what you wanted to hear. I'm sorry, it has to be done. We're closing in on the end and I gotta wrap up Paul's story so we can get back to that soccercop-lovin'.
> 
> Also featured in this chapter- Tasty Tony (from behind) and Sammy the Adorable.

Tony “Antoinette” Sawicki--armed robbery, theft, car jacking. The list of crimes on this clone was longer than her arm. Beth squinted at the picture, and he was a clone alright, his cocky grin looked obnoxiously similar to Cosima’s. Hidden behind the ridiculous mullet and the wispy facial hair, was the familiar face of another family member.

A stewardess passed by and asked if Beth needed anything before the descent to Cincinnati. She shook her head politely and pocketed her phone. Once the woman had moved on to the next row, Beth pulled out a folded piece of paper--it was a letter she’d been trying to write Paul. She wanted information. He certainly seemed belligerent enough in his phone calls with his handler Olivier to make Beth question his loyalty to the Neolutionists and DYAD by extension. If he had someone to confide in, maybe she could sway him. Having him on their side was much more preferable than going into this war empty handed. And for some sick reason, she still loved him. Buried somewhere in the mess of everything, were the pictures hanging on their fridge, their home videos, moments when they weren’t pretending. She remembered the gentleness of his fingers as he grazed the mark Daniel had left on her. Did he feel something for her after all?

She smoothed out the paper and tapped her pen against it, trying to decide how much of the information that she’d uncovered about DYAD should be included in the letter. It only took a second for her to realize that she should completely leave out any mention of the corporation, or Paul’s place in their ranks. At least until she really knew where his loyalties lie.

 _Paul-_ She wrote.

 _I spent last night watching you sleep. Just staring at you. Most people look innocent in their sleep. Not you. You’re hiding something. Something’s chewing you up inside. I should know, I’ve seen that look in the mirror every day for weeks. I just didn’t connect the two until now._

She closed her eyes tightly, realizing she had more to say to Paul than she knew how to put into words. And none of it had anything to do with him being her monitor. She continued:

_I’m tired of fighting for us, Paul. This feels like a strange dream I can’t escape. I have a boyfriend who treats me wonderfully most days but I want more than that. Sadly, more just doesn’t come out of nowhere. It’s in your eyes that you don’t love me and the world’s just piling up against me. My hopes are falling away from me so fast and I want to hold on but I can’t. And flawed like a human being, I seem to be holding onto what I can’t have. This is me begging you. The man I love is slipping away and I fear now that he’s not coming back. So I beg of you to let me go. I don’t see an issue if you no longer care._  
 _-Beth_

“All right, if everyone could please store your items in a safe place and lock those tray tables into their upright position, we’ll be beginning our final descent into Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport.”

The letter had turned out differently than she intended, though she knew it all needed to be said. The words had burst forth from her pen outside of her control. She brushed the tears off the bridge of her nose with a swipe from the sleeve of her peacoat. Was she really asking him to leave? She meant to confront him about his loyalties, but she still had too much softness for him. She knew he was the enemy, but she loved him. She didn’t want to fight him, they’d spent so much time ramming into each other at high speeds. 

At the same time she really did want to fight him, to lash out and hurt him the way he’d hurt her. Beth ached for confrontation. She wanted to yell in Paul’s face, she wanted to force him out the door. She wanted him to grab her arms too tightly and kiss her hard and tell her it was all a misunderstanding, that he was working against DYAD from the inside, that he really did love her. She used her thumb to blot out a tear drop on the page.

***

Tony Sawicki worked as a mechanic at a garage, at least that’s what he was supposed to be doing. Beth peeked around the corner of a building across the street from the business, Sammy’s Garage was plastered on bold signage over a rolling door. She worried he would be out doing…crime when she called, but he answered. His voice was deep and gruff, but still familiar. “Sammy’s Garage.”

“Tony Sawicki?”

“Yeah, who is this?”

“My name is Beth Childs, I think we might be related.” There was a pause, she could hear him clearing his throat, scratching at his cheek.

“Related? Like how?” She could see the back of him now, through a window, he had a hand holding the phone up and the other jammed in his pocket, his mullet a ratted mess behind his neck.

“I’d like to meet, it’s a more visual conversation.” She flashed back to her first conversation with Cosima and smiled at the thought.

He chuckled, the sound was low and long, tutting at the end. “Now, now, Beth Childs, I’m not in the habit of meeting with people I don’t know.”

“How will you get to know me if we don’t meet?”

“You got a job for me, is that what this is about?” Tony turned to face the window.

Beth pulled back quickly, tucking her body out of sight against the corner of the building. “No, Tony, I--“ Her words caught in her throat, standing before her was a large, burly man. His arms were crossed in front of his chest and his eyes looked like twin coals. “I’ll call you back.” She muttered into the phone before hanging up and slipping it in her pocket.

The large man gave her a hard once over. “Who are you?” He asked.

“Who are you?” She glanced around, without a weapon she was feeling exposed. She hoped to find a safe escape route, but before she could make a break for it the man answered.

“I’m Sammy. Tony’s friend.”

Beth’s ears perked up. “Tony’s friend?” He stared her down silently. “Does Tony have many friends?”

“Only me. Which is why I’m wondering what the hell some pretty little look-a-like is doing coming around here. You see, I’m real protective of my boy. I don’t want anyone wandering in and messing things up for us.”

“You’re his only friend?” Beth smelled monitor all over the big man. She went for it--leap of faith. All she could do was pray the accusation would phase him. “Are you his monitor?”

Her plan worked. Sammy’s hands instantly dropped to his sides, his jaw went slack, and his meaty face contorted into some look of confusion. “How do you--“

“Do you know Tony is a clone? I’m Beth Childs, Tony’s sister…one of many.”

“Holy shit.” Sammy spun slowly, looking towards his shop and up at the sky and down at the ground, and finally back at Beth. “I mean…fuck.”

She nodded. “You are his monitor.”

“Look, he doesn’t know about me, you can’t tell him. He’ll never forgive me for keeping this from him.”

Her jaw clenched, she didn’t know how she’d feel if someone who knew about Paul hid information from her. “I don’t know.”

“He’s my best friend, seriously. Not monitor bullshit, he really is my best friend. I can’t lose him.” He was pleading now, and genuine in a way Beth had never expected from the human cement stack standing in front of her. There was a child-like fear in his eye, and she crumbled under it, reaching a hand out to touch his shoulder.

“I won’t tell him. I think you should though. Things might be different between Paul and I if he’d just been honest with me. Finding out for yourself isn’t--“

“Paul?”

Beth felt an ember of fury burn in her chest at the recognition in his voice. “My monitor, Paul Dierden.”

Sammy’s eyes went wide. “Dierden?”

“Do you know him? Met at the monitor convention?” She was angry and accusatory, poking at his chest. The big man stumbled back away from her, hands up in surrender.

“What, huh? No, no!” Sammy shook his head earnestly, looking over towards the shop so she couldn’t catch his eye. “Just…different Paul.” He took a deep breath, “You want to talk to Tony?”

“Yeah. Can you get me in with him?”

Sammy bit the inside of his cheek and shook his head. “Not if he isn’t willing to meet you himself. I can try though.”

But Beth was already calling the garage phone and when the clone picked up she launched into her plea, “Tony, it’s Beth Childs. We really need to meet.” Sammy spun, hands out as if trying to stop her. “I don’t have a job for you, just information pertaining to your family. Like I said we’re related. I’m a cop up in Toronto and I have answers about your—“ Sammy’s massive hand fell over her mouth just a moment too late.

“Excuse me, what?” Tony replied.

She glared at Sammy and pushed his hand off of her mouth to continue, “I have information about your conception that I think you need to know.”

“No, no.” He was laughing heartily. “Did you say you’re a cop?”

Beth’s eyes locked on Sammy’s, who were apologetic, as if he’d wanted to warn her. She slid a hand down her face. “Actually, I’m suspended.”

“I don’t mess around with pigs, lady. Sorry. Don’t call back.” The line died.

Beth groaned and slammed her head back against the building behind her. Sammy sighed and rested a consoling hand on her shoulder. “He’s never going to talk to you now.”

“He’s in danger, Sammy. There is someone hunting us down.”

“Have you told--“ he paused, his lips fumbling, “uh, your monitor?”

“Paul doesn’t know that I know about him. And if you tell him or DYAD about this, I’ll come back and Tony won’t be the only one in danger.”

“I won’t. And I’ll protect Tony, I always have.” She believed him, but worried he didn’t understand the severity of the threat--Helena, or the one she’d thrown out at him.

Beth turned to leave but Sammy caught her at the elbow. “Beth,” she turned, “do you mind giving me your number? In case Tony ever gets curious? I want him to know you’re out there, that he’s not alone. His parents are kind of…” he shook his head, “you seem nice, is all.” Beth let out a disbelieving laugh and exchanged phone numbers with the big man.

He hugged her goodbye, it felt like being buried in the chest of a grizzly bear.

***

Beth was staring into a mirror, a reflection of a variation. A reflection of a reflection. Just another image of Katja, Alison, Cosima, Helena, Sarah, Tony, Rachel, the fragile clone outside DYAD, the list kept growing. She wasn’t sure where she was, or how she got there, but a quick look around gave her answers--an airplane lavatory. She must be on the way home. Home? Paul’s house.

She took a shaky breath, losing time was something she was getting used to, but it always jarred her when she snapped out of it. She always wondered if she’d done or said something suspicious in earshot of others. Just make it home, she told herself, just make it to Paul’s.

She didn’t have a home anymore, caught somewhere between a man who could never love her, and a woman she could never be with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beth’s note to Paul was decoded from impossible screenshots by someone much more brilliant and patient than I-- BuckleUpCreampuffs (on Tumblr). So a big thanks to her, both for rocking that out and for being kind enough to let me rip it off.


	18. Running From Wolves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter I wrote for this story, it's also the beginning of the end. Beth has a train to catch in 30 hours and we're counting down 7 days until the end. I'm getting a wee bit emotional about it, apologies.

A run would clear her head, Beth decided. She always thought better when she was moving anyway. Pacing around the apartment had long lost its appeal, the walls seemed stale and barren. She wondered if the woman in the pictures on the fridge was ever really her. Her bones itched for the meds she’d spent the day denying herself.

She couldn’t spend any more time stressing out about Rachel’s next move. In the time since she’d signed the contract she’d seen neither hide nor hair of Daniel. Beth worried that DYAD was lulling her into a false sense of security. That they were waiting just outside of her vision, watching her and looking for the perfect time to strike.

With a deep sigh she gathered up the substantial pile of papers strewn across the counter, knocking their bottoms against the metal and sliding her notes into a blank file folder. She paused, leaning heavily on the counter, eyeing the evidence, willing the mess to solve itself, willing the pieces to fall into place. She swallowed the tightness in her throat--was that even what she wanted? More horrifying answers leading to more goddamn questions? She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping to find something in the blackness behind her eyelids. All she found was Maggie Chen’s body, crooked and splayed where she fell, a mess of long limbs at awkward angles. Beth pressed her fingers against her eyelids, applying desperate pressure until all she saw was red. Daniel’s face came swimming into vision, his lips hungry for her blood, his grip tight around her neck. Or was it Helena? Her eyes snapped open.

Pushing off the counter, Beth left the scraps of her new life in the kitchen and headed to the bedroom. With Paul out of town there was no one to hide from. Still, it felt unusual to leave the file out in the open, the pieces of a life she’d found and lost in the same moment--the moment she answered the call from the German. She scanned the closet rack, looking for her favorite baby blue hoody, she couldn’t remember where she’d left it. She couldn’t remember a lot of things, things she knew she should remember. She picked a grey one out instead and tossed it behind her, into the bedroom and bent to pick up her Nikes. She groaned at the stiffness in her body, when did she start feeling so old? She couldn’t remember the answer to that question either. She righted herself and moved from the closet to sit next to her hoody on the edge of Paul’s empty bed.

What would happen if she just left? If she was gone when he got back, how would Paul react? He’d be relieved, she thought, but DYAD wouldn’t give him the time to breathe without her. Rachel would find her in an instant, she knew, and Paul would be forced back into her life like an unnatural, grating thing.

Tying her shoes felt comforting, the practiced motion easing the tension in her shoulders. Once she was finished she slapped her hands against her knees and stood, grabbing the hoody and slinging it over her shoulders. She looked down to link the zipper, pulling it up to her sternum swiftly and turned into the apartment. Scooping her mp3 player and earbuds from the counter, she headed for the door. Her keys were in the box where she’d left them and she tucked them into the opposite pocket. Buds in her ears, she turned up the volume and bounced on the balls of her feet for a moment before ducking her head and jogging towards the sidewalk.

Tony Sawicki had made it clear that he was less than interested to hear anything more from her after their last phone call. Sammy seemed trustworthy, at least as trustworthy as a monitor could be, and she hoped he would open up to the clone. Maybe he could convince Tony to call her. Beth stopped to look both ways when the sidewalk ran out before pressing across the street.

DYAD definitely had the upper hand, she had no idea how much they knew about her investigation. They knew she was self-aware, they knew she’d seen the sick clone downtown, but what else did they know? Had they seen her at Alison’s? Did they send someone to watch her in Cincinnati? The chances were slim that they hadn’t flagged her leaving the country. Things were getting risky. With the German scheduled to fly in the next day, DYAD was sure to notice something was amiss. She hoped Katja was cautious, which was foolish, the German was as frightened as any of them and was sure to have covered her tracks. Still, the lingering fear that Katja’s monitor-boyfriend might pick up on the secrecy haunted Beth.

Approaching an intersection she slowed, jogging in place while she pushed the button for the crossing signal. DYAD was only one of her problems, she was certain Helena was moving in closer and just toying with her the way she toyed with Katja. She could feel the Ukrainian’s presence in her sleep, around every corner, batting her around like cat with a mouse. Her throat tightened and she could feel the familiar pressure on her chest again. She’d known she wasn’t strong enough to go without her meds. Beth shook her hands out, anxious to quell the panic moving up her windpipe. The crossing signal turned and she took off at full speed from a stand-still, not bothering to double-check for cars. She pressed hard, her shoes slapping sloppily against the ground as asphalt turned to the cement of the sidewalk. She pushed harder, closing her eyes tightly against the wind and the hot tears boiling behind her eyes. A car horn sounded somewhere behind her and her firing mind flooded with images of Helena’s wild hair wiping in the wind--a vision of the Ukrainian running in front of a car that had to slam on it’s breaks to miss her, her hungry eyes trained on Beth’s back instead of her own path. Beth lost control of her breathing in that moment, pushing herself--desperately trying to outrun the angry ghost.

Her playlist had long since run through and the loud chimes of her pink burner pulled her from her panic. Beth slowed, her knees aching with the stress of stopping so quickly; her torso lurched forward, but her hands found purchase, fingers digging in against the sides of her kneecaps. She heaved a hollow breath, wheezing, feeling a crackling in chest. Her phone continued to jingle in her pocket, vibrating angrily against her navel. Her hand dug for it, but as her fingers curled around it she lurched again, gasping for air. A cough bubbled from her spasming lungs and she felt a warm wetness against her palm when she caught her own blood and phlegm.

Fear shot through her, as if struck by lightning, she knew the red immediately without looking into her trembling hand. Her mouth tasted like bitter metal and she spat into the road to her left. Her lungs burned but she forced in another breath. Her phone stopped vibrating. Another deep breath. Another. She could feel every molecule in her body, and the hollow rasp, the static in her lungs was felt more than heard. With each breath she knew the prickles of it down low, just above her diaphragm.

Her phone chimed again and she wiped her hand against her Lycra shorts, cleaning the blood from her life-line and searched in her pocket for it, locking her other arm to leverage her weight against her knee. She glanced at the screen before pushing the call button.

“Cosima,” She answered.

The innocent joyful voice of Cosima was nearly more than Beth could handle, and she prayed that the other woman couldn’t hear the rattle in her heavy breathing. “Beth! I just got off the phone with the German, she managed to get the last sample we needed. She’s very crafty.”

Cosima paused, Beth nearly forgot to answer, having heard very few of the woman’s words so far, the blood rushing through her ears drowning out the scientist’s exuberance. “Yeah,” she said finally, “uh, good.” She hoped that was the appropriate response.

“That’s what I said.” Beth breathed a sigh of relief, “I’ll be heading over there tonight, my bus gets in at seven tomorrow morning,” another pause.

“Do you need a ride?” The detective asked.

“If you don’t mind, Alison is pretty put out already--you know how she gets when I’m coming into town.” Cosima forced a half-hearted laugh. Beth couldn’t remember the last time Cosima’s voice had sounded strained. The slight tension in the conversation pulled Beth’s focus back to the internal sounds of her own breathing, the crackle was absent and Beth wondered if she’d ever heard it. She was splintering, she could see it, was this another crack? Had she been imagining it? She glanced down at her shorts where she’d smudged her hand, but the black fabric offered no answers. Another deep breath left her feeling more confident, it hadn’t been real--her mouth tasted normal, if a bit dry from her open-mouthed breathing, it didn’t taste like rust. Everything was fine.

She could hear the shuffling of papers on the other line, but Cosima was quiet. “Beth, are you okay?”

“Huh? Yea-yes. Yes, of course.” Panic swelled again beneath the grey fabric of her hoody.

Cosima coughed to clear her throat, “Just checking. Alison…” she trailed off. What had Alison said? Beth didn’t have time to ask before the scientist redirected the conversation, “so seven tomorrow?”

“Yeah, email me your itinerary, would you?”

“You got it.”

Beth nodded as if Cosima could see it, but the dreaded student knew her well enough to pick up on the movement through the phone-line and Beth could hear her smile when she said “until then, then.”

They hung up at the same time and Beth finally looked up at her surroundings to orient herself, she was miles from Paul’s house. She thought momentarily about the danger of losing what had to be at least half an hour of time but shook the thoughts from her mind, she had no room for more bullshit. She swung out her arms, rolling her shoulders and shaking out her legs before she turned and started jogging back the way she came, the sole of her sneaker landing in unnoticed droplets of clotted blood and saliva.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've been talking about Paul too much lately. Go find your Soccercop panties-- you're going to need them.


	19. Just One, I'm a Few

“I’ve got it, Cosima.” Beth picked her clone’s luggage up off the sidewalk and slung it into the trunk of yet another rental car. She’d asked the rental company to pick up the old one and took a taxi to get another. She couldn’t risk Daniel knowing what kind of car she drove. As soon as the lid was shut, Cosima was wrapping her in a tight hug. It was…unexpected. She said nothing, just held Beth flush against her for what Beth considered to be too long of a time. “Y’alright, Cosima?” Beth leaned backwards to put space between them, puffing air out of her mouth to loose the strands of hair that had gotten caught between her lips.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Cosima was quieter, she was eyeing Beth in a way that the detective couldn’t quite pin down. Could she tell Beth was sober, did Cosima even know she’d fallen off the wagon, or had Alison mentioned her mental instability? Beth raised her brows and smiled a tight-lipped, awkward smile before walking around and ducking inside her car.

The vehicle was calm and silent before the tornado of Cosima blew in. Her hands were already moving like debris caught in the cyclone when she shut the door. She was talking faster than Beth could keep up with, but the detective was happy that Cosima was beginning to behave like her normal self after the tense hug just moments before.

“I’m just saying that we have no idea how many more clones are out there, right? It’s entirely possible that there are tens of us, spread out all over the globe. We need some sort of distinction, what if we run into a new clone?”

“What do you mean?” Beth hit the turn signal and glanced over her shoulder before pulling in front of a motorcycle and driving away from the bus station.

“Well as our connections grow, we’re bound to run into other clones. I think Clone Club should have like…a secret handshake or something. That way if we run into a stranger, we know if they’re game or not. Right?”

“You’re high.”

“No. Trust me Beth, this is a good idea.”

Beth shook her head, chuckling at the absurdity, “I refuse to have a secret handshake with you. Besides, if we run into another clone we’ll know they’re not a member of Clone Club, because Clone Club is just you, me, Katja, and Ali.” She paused for a moment, “And Ali won’t even admit that she’s a member. We’re not the Fraternal Order of the Elks, I don’t see the point in a handshake. I’d be okay with making everyone pay dues though.” She shot Cosima a shit-eating grin without noticing the motorcycle driver looking over at them from the next lane from behind a tinted helmet.

“I thought Alison had us covered in the money department, did you blow through 75 grand already?”

“No, I was just being snarky.” Beth pouted and slowed to a stop at a red light. She dropped back against the leather seat, tipping her head to look at Cosima. They shared an amicable smile. “I’m glad you’re in town, Cosima.”

Cosima reached out and ran a hand down Beth’s arm, clutching her hand and intertwining their fingers. “I’m glad too, I think I’m happiest here, surrounded by my sisters.”

Beth glanced at the clock on the car’s dash, “Well, you’ll get to meet another sister soon. Katja is on a plane right now. I’m meeting her tomorrow and I’ll bring her back to Alison’s in the afternoon.”

Cosima’s smile grew wider and her eyes brightened. She released Beth’s hand as the light turned green and adjusted in her seat to look out the window. “I’m really looking forward to it. She’s bringing so many puzzle pieces with her, it’s like a treasure trove of science-y goodness.”

“Yeah,” Beth’s easy smile spread slowly into seriousness, “just don’t forget why she’s here. These samples and her physical body, here in Toronto…” She kept her eyes on the road but reached across the console to squeeze Cosima’s knee. “You’ve got to help her. This illness, we know so little about it. We’re all here for support, but your brain is the star in all this.”

“I’ve got to save her.” Cosima’s voice was deeper in that moment, as if weighed down by the gravity of the situation. Beth could feel Cosima’s eyes against her profile, she worried the weight of Cosima’s words didn’t stop with just the need to save the German. She wondered how much Cosima and Alison had been speaking when she wasn’t around--how much they were speaking about her.

“Yeah, we’ve all got to save her.” Beth slowed the car to a stop, hidden in its usual spot just out of view of Alison’s house. Neither of them noticed the motorcycle puttering to a stop a block behind them. “I’ll grab your bags, why don’t you go tap on the back door and see if Ali is already waiting.”

“Hey, is this a new car?”

“A rental, mine is in the shop.” Beth felt guilty about lying, but she’d been lying so much lately that it was getting easier. Even with Paul out of town, she feared driving her car to Alison’s house— especially with Daniel lurking about.

Cosima nodded and opened the door, wrapping her flowing sweater tighter around her body as she shuffled across the distance to the fence. Beth popped the trunk and lost sight of her clone’s dread-bun as Cosima moved into the yard. She smiled softly at the thought of another Clone Club reunion. As ridiculous as it sounded, she really had found some sort of strange happiness with these women--a sisterhood. The word caught, buzzed in the back of her brain, shot pain down her tense neck. Alison was her sister, she’d slept with her sister, she was in love with her sister. She took a deep breath and yanked Cosima’s bag violently from the trunk, slamming it harder than was necessary. Her feelings for Alison didn’t feel familial, they felt deep and swimming and hot. She stood for a moment in the middle of the street, unsure if she was going to punch something or vomit.

“Beth!”

Alison’s hiss brought Beth back from the edge, she swallowed down the bile and rage and walked the rest of the way across the street. Alison’s face was radiant, lit up and beautiful like the only ray of sunshine in all of Toronto that day was shining out of her mouth, from behind her eyes. She was very clearly drunk, unfazed by the early hour. She reached for Beth, grabbing her wrist and pulling her through the opening in the fence, giggling like a school girl. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Beth, the whole neighborhood could have seen you.” The grip around her wrist burned in the places where skin met skin and she knew she was ruined for anyone but Alison for the rest of her life. She was empty but for this small, fierce woman’s grin.

Beth was becoming accustomed to losing time, coming to with a racing heart and a sick boiling in her gut. So when she blinked and found herself in Alison’s basement she was surprised not by the short minute or two in between, but by the butterflies that swarmed up into her chest when Alison pressed into her. They were in the doorway to the craft room and she was trying to make way for Cosima, Beth was left trapped between the doorframe and Alison’s back. The two were tittering back and forth, Alison was always grumbling in the days before Cosima arrived, but once they were together she was all smiles. This bond that connected them all, it had left them unknowingly empty for decades--but here, in Alison’s basement they were all three whole again, if only for a few days.

“I spoke with Katja right before her plane took off, she’s going to rent a car and stay in a hotel. She won’t make contact with any of us until she’s sure she’s not being followed,” Beth said. The tension melting out of her body in the presence of her family, her hands moved surely to Alison’s hips for leverage as she slid herself out of the small space she’d been pinned in. She could almost feel Alison’s eyelashes flutter at the loss of contact when she let go.

She had finally managed to right their messy wrongs, she didn’t want to fall out of step again. That wasn’t entirely true--she did want to stumble, she wanted to kiss Alison squarely, here and now. She wanted to feel the pressure of Alison’s hips against hers for the rest of her life, but she didn’t want to see the look on Alison’s face in the morning light when the energy of the moment was gone and they were left standing miles apart with nothing but tears and disgusted silence between them--two identical sisters.

Beth felt a buzz in her jacket pocket, she dug inside to find her work phone humming. “Hey, I’ve got to take this call.”

She slipped into the basement proper and closed the craft room door quietly behind her. “Childs.” She answered.

“Detective Childs? It’s Alan, from the train station?”

Beth had to squint her eyes to will his face into her memory. She had paid him to keep her updated on anyone by the name of Sarah Manning coming up in their purchase databases. She’d also made contacts at the airport and bus terminals. The memories were coming back to her slowly; the summer was mostly a haze of withdrawals and sweat, tossing and turning in Paul’s bed, Alison’s bed. She felt a pang of loss when a shift of her hips didn’t produce the familiar sound of pills clattering quietly in their container. All that work to get clean, only to fall right back into it. And where was she now? Cold-turkey and shaking. It weighed on her, but she hoped that after a few more pill-free days she might be able to overcome the paralyzing fear. 

For a few beats she reconsidered her sobriety, at least with a dose or two she could muster up enough bravado to get her through the hours. And she would need that in the days to come: Katja flew in today, her reinstatement hearing was tomorrow, and Art was on her back about going over the details of the shooting again. 

“Detective Childs?”

His voice snapped her out of her anxiety spiral, how long had he been waiting? She cleared her throat, “Yeah, sorry. You found something? Sarah Manning?”

“Yeah, she bought a ticket into Huxley, it gets in at 9pm tonight. She paid for it with cash, but they have to check her ID, so it’s probably not a fake name.”

“9pm tonight?” Beth asked and nodded at his confirmation. “If it’s not her I’ll let you know. Thanks for all your help, I’ll make sure the rest of your payment goes through.” The information had only cost her $100, but train station employees weren’t very well paid, and the young man had been eager to help.

She hung up the phone and sighed deeply. She would meet the slippery grifter right when she stepped off the train, then she’d finally have her hands on Sarah Manning. That was as far as she’d gotten in her plan. What was she going to say to Sarah? ‘Hey, we’re clones and someone is trying to kill us. Don’t freak out, I know about your kid, but do freak out because if anyone else finds out that only one of their oodles of infertile clones managed to conceive you’re going to have scientists breathing down your neck and straight into your womb.’

She rubbed the back of her neck to ease the debilitating tension there. She didn’t want Sarah in Clone Club, Sarah was a criminal--a real criminal. She wasn’t an 18-year-old who smoked a bunch of pot and sat too long at a rally, the girl was a straight up hustler. The farther Beth could keep Sarah away from Clone Club the better. The need to protect her burned within Beth though. Sarah had no idea what was coming and she had a daughter to protect, Beth felt bile rise up in the back of her throat at the idea of what DYAD would do to that innocent little girl.

So she had to tell Sarah, she had to warn her. She nodded to herself, deciding on her next step: meet Sarah at Huxley Station, warn her of DYAD and the Proletheans, tell her to get her daughter and run. Never stop running.

The thought of clones like Sarah and Tony who lived out in the real world was causing Beth to begin to understand the need for Cosima’s secret handshake. Maybe it wasn’t a terrible idea.

“Beth?” Cosima had her upper body hanging out of the craft room. Her name hadn’t been a greeting, or a way of getting her attention, it sounded worried--like Cosima had been there for some time watching Beth wrap around herself like a cornered animal. The detective gave her a fake smile, but the quickly hidden furrow of Cosima’s brow told her she’d be unsuccessful in convincing the other woman that she was fine. “What’s going on?”

“Just some work stuff.” Beth was going to say more, but movement in the window caught her eye. Her nose scrunched and her eyebrows came together. She took a few steps closer to investigate but was interrupted by Alison pushing around Cosima into the basement.

She stood between the two women, hips cocked and elbows tucked at her sides with an arm tilted out towards each of them. “Beth has a reinstatement hearing tomorrow.” She slurred in explanation.

Beth nodded, hoping Cosima wouldn’t press for more information, the hearing was gnawing away at her bones. She’d spent so long lying to everyone she cared about. Thankfully Cosima just nodded.

***

Beth leaned her hips back into the kitchen island, her head dropping back, her brown hair tickling the odds and ends peppered across it. Alison watched her over the rim of her wine glass for a few moments before she set it down and moved to stand in front of Beth. Too close. Her thin fingers found purchase against Beth’s belt loops and she used them to guide herself in until their thighs and hips were touching.

Beth felt her pulse quicken, she lifted her head to find Alison’s eyes. Too close. “What are you doing?” It came out quick. Too quick. The words creaked around the knot in her throat.

“I…” Alison, upon realizing she didn’t have an answer, untangled her fingers and made a move to step back. But quickly, too quickly, Beth was leaning forward. Her cold fingers warming against the hot skin of Alison’s booze-flushed cheeks. One hand found purchase against the small of Alison’s waist and she was pulling the clone into her.

The nervousness melted from Alison’s tensing body when their lips touched like hands folding together in prayer. Beth broke the kiss after a moment but her breath on the other woman’s cheek gave Alison the confidence to tangle slim fingers in the fabric at Beth’s hips. “What are we doing here, Ali?” Beth rephrased her question.

Alison’s exhales were shaky and Beth wasn’t sure if it was from desire or distaste, but the housewife’s hands were a mess of fumbling fingertips against her sides. “Beth.” She sounded like she was going to say something, her voice held traces of ‘we’ve got to stop’ and ‘we can’t keep doing this’. Beth was so desperate to hear anything but those words that she pressed her lips over Alison’s again to silence her.

Alison was the first to pull away this time and her words were quiet and small, whispered across the inches of heavy air between them. “This is wrong, I know that. But…” Her head dropped to Beth’s shoulder and she slipped her hands under the hem of the detective’s sweater. Her thumbs fit like puzzle pieces inside the dips caused by the bones of Beth’s pelvis--not with questing desire, but a need for things to be okay. Her face turned into her double’s neck, the gentle but rapid beat of her lashes was a drummer keeping cadence for Beth’s marching heart.

Beth tried to steady her breathing, hoping Alison couldn’t tell how difficult it was, “But?”

“But everything is so effed up all the time. We’re freaks. Our lives are a crazy mess, and even in my own house you’re the only thing that feels like home.”

Beth wrapped her arms tightly around the other woman. As she dipped her face to Alison’s neck she could see the housewife’s lips crack into a wide smile. Beth grinned into her pulse point and kissed it reverently. No matter how wrong it was outside of this house, here, with Alison, it was the only thing that was right.

Here she forgot Helena and Rachel, she didn’t worry about Tony or Sarah, and both Paul and Daniel could happily jump off a fucking cliff. Here she didn’t need the pills.

She spun them around, leaning into Alison until she was bent back over the island. Her honey brown eyes met their twins, both sets dancing. Her thigh found a home between Alison’s and her smile found its place skimming over the skin exposed by the neckline of Alison’s shirt. “Just here, just for now.” She whispered into Alison’s collarbone.

“Just one more time.” Alison’s hands found Beth’s cheeks and held her, dipping her head to share another kiss.

Cosima’s voice coming up the stairs startled them both, “Hey, Alison, I wanted to run this idea by you. Beth thinks it’s stupid but I’m telling you, it’s something we should really consider employing.”

They hadn’t untangled their mess of limbs, but Alison stopped Cosima’s ascent to the first floor, “I’m excited to hear it--Beth is often wrong,” she held back the reactionary squeal from Beth’s well-placed warning nip at the fragile skin behind her ear. “We’ll be down in a minute, just fetching drinks--are you thirsty?” Alison’s hands were on Beth’s shoulders, urging her off, but Beth pressed heavily against her chuckling quietly into her skin.

“Ooo, a beer would be good.” Cosima’s voice was fading, her footfalls moving back down the stairs.

Alison let out a relieved breath and pushed harder until Beth relented. “Beth, Cosima is going to know.”

“What are you talking about?” She rolled off of Alison and flung her body into a stool. “She’s not going to know anything.”

“She’s a lesbian, she’s going to…I don’t know--smell it on us!”

Beth’s eye-roll was so exaggerated that it lolled her head around with it. “Alison, you’re paranoid.”

Alison cocked her hip and head, daring Beth to continue.

She flashed fang and changed tactics. “Besides, Cosima totally isn’t a lesbian.”

An actual burst of laughter left Alison’s mouth. “Are you kidding me, Beth, she is so gay.”

“What?”

Alison moved to the fridge and pulled a beer out for Cosima, glancing over her shoulder with an incredulous look. “You have got to be kidding me? Seriously? She’s…obnoxiously gay.”

“No, she’s not. No way.” Beth was following Alison towards the stairs.

The small woman was muttering all the way, “They really made you a detective?”

***

“Secret handshakes?”

Beth laughed at the disbelief in Alison’s voice. “I told you she was ridiculous. I’ve been thinking about it though,” she turned to Cosima, “and maybe you’re on to something.”

“It doesn’t have to be a handshake!” Cosima’s hands flailed as she tried to vocalize the thought that had popped into her head, “What about, like, a call-and-response?”

“Call-and-response?” Alison sounded confused.

Beth nodded, understanding Cosima’s idea. “It’s like a phrase that you have to answer correctly.”

“Yeah, it could be discreet.” Cosima nodded, her eye teeth poking out against the corners of her drawn lips.

Beth turned back to her, “So what do you have in mind?”

“Well it should be clone-related, right? So another clone gets it. What about--Just one, I’m a few?”

Beth nodded, liking the sound of it, “No family, too,” she added.

Alison finally spoke, her back to them as she looked out the window, fingers pressed against her lips. “Who am I?” She didn’t see the wisps of blonde or the red-rimmed eye peeking through the gap in her fence.

Cosima and Beth shared a smile, clapping each other on the shoulder and shaking gently, celebrating a small victory.

“So if that’s the ‘call’ what is the ‘response’?” Alison turned to them and asked.

***

Beth woke to Alison’s thumb brushing against her cheek, she couldn’t remember falling asleep. She remembered that Cosima had drifted off sprawled over the couch so she and Alison had made their way upstairs.

“Beth, you’re crying.” Alison’s voice was worried, and the realization that she was, in fact, crying made Beth sit up quickly. She rubbed the sleep and wetness from her eyes and glanced around. She couldn’t have been asleep long, the clock by Alison’s bed read 1pm.

“Sorry, sorry.” Beth shook her head to clear the fog and felt her heart race at the surprise and embarrassment of being caught crying. There was a pang of sadness, remembering how just an hour ago she’d felt its beat slow and calm for the first time in months. Alison’s head had been gentle against her chest, fingertips softly tracing patterns around her navel. Beth had felt it ease into a steady and regular thump-thump, thump-thump under Alison’s careful touch.

“Don’t apologize, Beth,” Alison whispered, pulling the detective closer with a hand at her waist. “Are you all right?”

Beth nodded, taking a calming breath, “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. I--“ She shook her head again, “just a bad dream, I guess.”

Alison was clearly unconvinced. “Are you sure? Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” Beth’s response was too quick.

“Beth…” Her voice made Beth feel like a toddler that had scraped a knee. She tried to pull away, but Alison’s hand moved to her jaw, drawing her into a gentle kiss.

The tenderness of Alison’s body pressing into her, the quiet movement of her lips against Beth’s caused more tears to spring to her eyes. She turned her head away, a frustrated fist coming down against her own lap. All she ever did in Alison’s bed was cry.

“Beth!” Alison grabbed the offending hand and pried Beth’s clenched fingers from where they were digging blunt nails into her palm. “Please,” she begged, “I’m worried about you.”

Before Beth could respond they heard the front door shut downstairs. “Ali?” A man’s voice traveled up the stairs.

Alison’s eyes flew open. “Donnie must have come home for lunch!” She hissed, terror lacing her words.

“Fuck.” Beth spun out from under the comforter and stood by the bed, frantically looking around until Alison reached her side and put a hand on her shoulder, pushing her towards the closet.

“Get in there!”

In the moment that Beth clicked the closet door shut, Donnie entered the bedroom. She reached for her clone phone and made sure it was on silent, texting Cosima with instructions to stay downstairs and absolutely silent in case the clone was awake.

“Hey, Babe.” Donnie’s voice was about what Beth expected from his pictures dotted around the house. She heard his lips click against Alison’s cheek. “Just home for lunch, I forgot some client paperwork.”

Alison tutted, fluttering around the room. “Well, you shouldn’t have slept in so late.”

“After last night?” Beth could hear the smirk that twisted Donnie’s lips, “I needed time to recover.” Her heart dropped as she swallowed the saliva that inevitably preceded vomit. Had she just been kissing Alison in the same bed the other woman had fucked her husband in the night before? She heard Alison suddenly stop her hurried movements and Beth curled around the pain, Alison’s awareness that she knew made it that much worse.

“Donnie, move. I was about to go to the grocery store, I can’t make you lunch.”

“You just went to the store yesterday.” He sounded confused.

“I forgot something.” The frustration in Alison’s tone was mounting. “Go, go, go.” She was shuffling him out of the bedroom and the door snapped shut.

Beth sighed, shutting her eyes tightly. She pressed her ear to the closet door until she heard footfalls moving down the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this was a fluffy chapter, but I've been told my definition of fluff is about as skewed as Evelyne's definition of the term 'buddy'. Brace yourselves, my loves, we're only 8 hours from impact (or three days, in people years).


	20. Sarah Manning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not time for chit-chat, we've got a train to catch.

Beth leaned back to sit on her heels, running a hand down her face. She’d managed to make it all the way home before giving in to the desire to puke. She gathered all the saliva in her mouth and spit into the toilet one last time before standing and flushing, watching the partially digested breakfast Alison had served spin away into nothing. Fitting, she thought, it was just like she and Alison were spinning apart. Beth grabbed her toothbrush and got to work cleaning the rotten taste from her mouth when her eyes caught her reflection in the mirror. “I’m Beth, I’m Beth,” she muttered around a mouthful of foam, her grip abandoning her toothbrush to support her weight against the counter. “Beth. Beth. Beth.” She tried shutting her eyes, tried remembering the things that made her…her.

_When she was six she’d fallen off the monkey bars and broken her arm._

_At eight she’d kissed Tommy Walker behind the library._

_Her first day of middle school she’d punched an older boy for teasing a kid in grade seven._

_Her track coach’s loud, celebratory hooting from the sidelines the day she’d won her first gold medal._

In the dull red light behind her eyelids Beth was swarmed by images of her clones, their nearly identical faces blending into hers— Katja’s flash of red hair, Cosima’s winged eye-liner, Alison’s tight jaw, Tony’s sideways smile, Sarah’s chapped lips. Helena’s feral snarl. Rachel’s powerful throat. She pounded her open palm against the countertop over and over until she fell back into her own memories.

_The feel of the ratty couch under her white-knuckle grip, straining to stay quiet while Megan Fischer knelt on the floor between her knees. The pain of heartbreak when Megan never spoke to her again._

_English class with Ms. Nelson, who stayed late after school to help her struggle through Shakespeare. Ms. Nelson who told her that high school was only four years, and that even though it seemed like forever it wasn’t._

_Prom with Andrew Tillman, his fumbling hands and nervous smile had given her butterflies._

_Graduation._

“Beth. Beth.” Her toothbrush was long since discarded and she’d managed to spit the toothpaste from her mouth while rocking though her whispered mantra.

_She remembered the look on her parents’ faces when she told them she wasn’t going to college._

_The smirk that flashed across her instructor’s lips when she breezed past everyone in the timed mile at the police academy._

_The first time she had a gun pointed at her face. She was still a rookie beat cop, a few months out of the academy. Her partner talked the young kid into handing over his gun and she’d cuffed him with shaking hands._

_She remembered the day she met Paul, his piercing blue eyes and unassuming smile._

_Their first anniversary, at her favorite pizza place in East York. She’d told him about how she used reward herself on the way home from track practice with a slice. They’d driven by her high school and she pointed out sites around town. He gave her the key to his place that night._

With a deep, shuddering breath Beth tried to will herself through the panic attack. She tried to talk herself out of swallowing a mouthful of pills, the medicine cabinet was so close. Things were coming to a head, soon she’d have to put Helena down or die trying and it wasn’t the time to be seeing doubles.

It wasn’t the time to be panicking either, she thought, and that was all it took to convince her. She palmed two pills into her mouth and washed them down with a minty swallow of water. Beth leaned forward until her forehead was pressed against the mirror, she’d let everyone down…again.

***

If she’d kept the rental car much longer she’d have to dip into the self-defense fund, which meant she’d have to explain the monitor situation to Alison. Beth didn’t think Alison or Cosima were monitored. If Alison was being watched it was by one of her many suburbanite friends and Beth didn’t know them well enough to determine which. Cosima, on the other hand, still seemed to be friendless in Minnesota. She thought it’d be easier to wait until she had more answers.

Driving her car wasn’t an option either. She imagined Paul, hunched over a laptop at his parent’s house in Cleveland, tracking her every move. So she stood in black pumps at the curb, waiting for a taxi. Shifting uncomfortably, she felt overdressed in her maroon sweater and skirt; a black blazer helped ward off the cold, but her legs had goosebumps raised against her pantyhose. She’d finally given in and replaced her run-tracker with a plain leather-banded watch but it felt wrong. She checked the time, she was running late for her final meeting with a union representative to discuss the shooting before her hearing tomorrow. Beth was clicking her heel against the cement when her taxi finally arrived.

The ride was just long enough for Beth to fall into an uneasy jitter. Her knee bounced and she shoved a piece of gum into her mouth when she realized she’d been gnawing at her fingernails. She sighed and ran her nails against her skirt, looking for catches. When she found one she brought her hand back to her mouth and dragged the snag across the edge of a bottom tooth to smooth it out. Her eyelids fluttered in the reflection of the window until she urged her eyes to break contact and look through the glass instead. The city lights were coming on now, it was nearly five.

She felt regret settle through her bones. In her earlier drugged state she’d left her pills at home, she’d been confident she could go without them. But the confidence had faded with the high and now the tension was creeping up her throat from the pit of her stomach. As the taxi sped along the highway she tried to keep her gaze on the city’s skyline stretched before her, but she kept catching Helena’s hungry eyes in the window. The beast was close, she could feel it.

***

“Hello, Beth.” The moment her high heel hit the ground she heard the accented words. She hadn’t been wrong-- Helena was always right around the corner.

“How did you know I’d be here?” Beth asked the shadows of a nearby alley.

Helena stepped forward into the fading sunlight, its last licks hit her tangled blonde curls at odd angles. “I always know where you are, CopyCop. I have to keep an eye on you, I cannot kill you if I lose you.” A glint of sunset bounced off something in her hand. A knife.

“Th-there are cops everywhere, everyone in this building.” Beth gestured to the office door, just a few feet away. “Do you really think you can get away with killing me here?” 

“I will not kill you here.” Helena’s head lolled back, as if she were bored. “I just came to tell you that I have found your friends. More copies. The one with the glasses and the other.”

Beth’s blood ran cold, Helena had tailed her to Alison’s house.

“Do you love them?” There was a strange waver in the killer’s voice, as if after hours of watching them she had grown genuinely curious.

She had nothing left to lose. “I do. They’re my family.”

“Family?” Helena’s brow furrowed and her broad mouth chewed at the word, her accent splitting it into three syllables.

Beth nodded, eyes flicking down to Helena’s blade.

“The next time I see you, yes?” She righted her head and walked closer, her knuckles white around the decorative wooden hilt, “I will take you to them so all of you can die together,” she growled, “as a family.”

Beth’s jaw clenched and she strode purposefully towards the door, reaching for the handle. She couldn’t look at Helena anymore, she couldn’t handle the cracking lips and burning eyes that looked too much like her own.

The assassin let her go, sliding back into the shadows as Beth moved through the door.

***

Beth blinked and found herself handing a cabbie a fistful of bank notes. Her mouth slid open and she shook her head before looking around, confused. The driver’s thick brows came together as he watched her, slowly taking the bills from her hand. “You all right, Miss?” He asked.

“Uh, yeah.” She recognized the area, Huxley station. It was dark out. “Th-the time?” She pulled her hand back and turned it to look at her watch--8:50pm. The driver confirmed and she thanked him before shutting the door.

There was only ten minutes until Sarah’s train got in. Beth walked quickly across the street, her heels clacking desperately against the road, the sound caused her heart to speed up. She swallowed and closed her eyes when she reached the entrance to the station. She was so close to finally catching Sarah Manning, but she’d lost time in the taxi and she wasn’t sure if Helena had followed. Of course Helena had followed. Helena lived with her, always, there was no escape.

A tight pressure was building behind her kneecaps, like water trickling into a balloon until the rubber resisted and started to expand. She was all too familiar with the feeling--she needed to run. Heels and a skirt wasn’t really running attire and without her car she didn’t have a spare set of clothes. Anxiety wrapped around her quickly, it’s shadowy arms brutal and mocking, Beth’s lungs tightened and she gasped to fill them. She dug in her purse, blunt nails scraping the bottom of the bag but there were no pills to be found. She opened her mouth wide, trying to swallow in gulps of oxygen. Alison. She needed to call Alison.

Suddenly she remembered Helena’s words and for once she prayed the red-eyed monster was watching her, ready to kill, anything that meant she wasn’t breaking into Alison’s house at that very moment. She looked around frantically, eyes scanning for a flash of blonde but finding only desolate platforms and empty tracks.

Her fingers closed around her burner phone and her thumb hit a button, lighting the screen-- 9:03. As if on cue, a train came barreling down the tracks. What was she doing here again? Sarah. “Sarah, Sarah,” Beth whispered to herself, walking towards the slowing train.

With each step her “Sarah’s” turned into “Alison’s” until the texture of Beth’s rubbery pink phone case pulled her out of her scattered thoughts. “Alison.” She looked down at the phone and dialed Alison’s number, she’d cleared out all three contacts that morning at Cosima’s urging. _“It kind of defeats the purpose of secret communication if all of our names are in the phones, don’t you think?”_ the older clone had said.

She pressed the phone to her ear, elbow jutted out and paced along the platform. She was crying now, loud and open and begging to hear Alison’s voice. To apologize for dragging her into this mess, to warn her about Helena, to plead with her to leave Donnie, to tell her that she loved her.

“Hello,” Alison’s voice was crisp and short, “You’ve reached Al-…my phone…” she sounded unsure of what the outgoing message on her clone phone should say. “I’m not available, but you probably shouldn’t leave a message.” Her last words were rushed and the beep came immediately after. Beth choked through a sob, she tried to speak but the tightness in her throat wouldn’t budge. She hung up the phone and ran her hands down her face.

Beth could feel the spasming of her lungs, her inner works fighting against her need to breathe. She doubled over and pressed the butt of her palm against her sternum, hoping the external pressure would some how ease the internal. Then she felt the bubbling, the swirling in her breath like a windstorm kicking up loose leaves in the lowest parts of her lungs. She struggled against it--fighting to even out her inhales, to smooth the rough edges of her exhales, but the debris was moving up her windpipe. She coughed, once towards the ground and several more times into her open hand only to find it wet with blood. Red splatter and dark, angry, clots thrown fresh and bright against her palm.

She shut her eyes tightly against the pop of color, the contrast against her pale skin was too stark and painful to see. She struggled through another breath. She hadn’t been imagining it, had she? She was sick. The respiratory illness that plagued Katja, it was genetic, it was ravaging her lungs too.

There was a voice in the background, but Beth could barely hear it over the pounding of her own heartbeat. “Can I at least speak to her? Hello? Bitch.”

What was she doing here? She continued her back and forth movements across the platform, the sound of her heels and her desperate sobs ringing out across the barren station. A train was coming, she could feel the rumbling in the ground.

She could almost remember the tremble in Katja’s shoulders while they Skyped through coughing fits. There was so much blood. She coughed again and tasted the sting of iron searing the backs of her teeth.

What was she doing here? She slipped out of her pumps and dropped her shoulders, her blazer sliding off her arms and into her waiting grasp. The rumbling was getting stronger now, the only thing between her soles and the platform was a sheer layer of her nylons; like the only space between her and Helena’s blade had been a few feet of thin air. She wanted to rip her hose, to feel the train echoing against the walls of her arches without their restriction, no matter how small.

Turning then, tears clouding her vision, she came face to face with another mirror, another reflection of Alison and Cosima, another reflection of her sick sister, of herself. Who was Beth? What was she doing here? I’m Beth, I’m Beth. Her lips tried to speak, but another spasm was grappling with her lungs, twisting them painfully. The rumble was unbearable now, it was so close. She took a few steps to her left and felt the platform run out under her feet.

She thought only of Alison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to take a second to thank everyone here and on tumblr for the kind words and the kudos and the likes and the reblogs and everything that you guys have done to make this a more interactive experience. I really enjoyed hearing your thoughts and interpretations of the story. I'll be posting some final thoughts on this story over on tumblr in the next day or so, I need to take a deep breath and collect my words-- there is a lot of emotion here.
> 
> Tonight, in addition to finishing TUSoEC, I'm posting the first chapter of a new Beth-centric High School AU called Cable Car. I hope you guys will all give the first chapter a shot.


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